CONSEQUENCES
Someone had stolen from her. Some fool, some wretch, some... some thief!
Dead and decaying branches crackled and rustled about her head as the Tunawa mage stared into the hole. The empty hole. She gripped her staff so hard the wood threatened to crack. She dearly wished to break something now. The efforts of an entire season, stolen from her by some nameless oaf, digging around in places they knew not of. She started to pace. Observing the ground. Seeing the signs of struggle, or simple pandemonium. That scent in the air... ah... Peganots. But something else, that made her wizened, soured, hateful features pinch even further in.
Peganots would have destroyed and devoured, not taken away everything, bag and all. This fact alone, and the scent of...
"Fur."
Mistress Briarsuckle turned away from the scene of the crime and stalked to a spot she had been preparing for a while. Not personally, just... mentally. It had been quite her good fortune to see it, in fact. Nature in its most raw and vicious moment... most tragic, too. A pair of carcasses in a glen, deep enough that the cawing, creeping things hadn't quite eaten them down to nothing. The Necromancer strode between them, observing the damage done to each other. Claw and fang and jaw and rage had ripped and gouged into both. She wasn't sure how the two males had come to blows, and didn't much care. It was still fascinating to watch. Then, when it was over, and the victor died mere bits after the loser, a worm of an idea wriggled in her knotty skull.
She sang the Bone Song. She worked her will with muttering words and lilting voice in a tongue that made all other creatures shrink from that shadowy glade. As she spoke she worked her magic, poured her mastery and her finesse with rot and corpse and resurrection into the two bodies. At the apex of her spell, her hands dove under her cloak and each one came out with a well.
There was a hideous, tearing, liquid sound as each were buried in a chest of rotting meat and pulsing muscle. By the time she stood back up... they were doing much the same.
"Come."
They obeyed. Padding after her. Bidden as hounds, instead of what they had been. She led hem back to the hole and pointed.
"Scent."
A pair of snuffling noses rooted around and Mistress Briarsuckle watched with her usual expression of disdain and smugness. She truly was growing beyond the realms her mentors had always imposed on her. Fortunate few she had to endure, of course, but still... the very nerve. Who else among her race could claim dominion over such beasts? That dwarfed her, that dwarfed men, now bound to her sure as a sword to a soldier or a quill to a scribe? She did this, her power... her destiny would not be denied. The Rotten could wait a while, though. This could not be allowed to stand. An outraged ignored once would only be repeated, so an example would be set.
She waited until her new Gaunts had finished getting the scent, looking up at her with dead-eyed patience. She extended a hand towards where the footprints had left, tramping over dirt and vegetation.
"Kill. All who were here. All who stole from me. Kill them all. Bring back their heads."
With a low growl the two risen wolves bounded into the woods, and for the first time, the Necromancer smiled.
Someone had stolen from her. Some fool, some wretch, some... some thief!
Dead and decaying branches crackled and rustled about her head as the Tunawa mage stared into the hole. The empty hole. She gripped her staff so hard the wood threatened to crack. She dearly wished to break something now. The efforts of an entire season, stolen from her by some nameless oaf, digging around in places they knew not of. She started to pace. Observing the ground. Seeing the signs of struggle, or simple pandemonium. That scent in the air... ah... Peganots. But something else, that made her wizened, soured, hateful features pinch even further in.
Peganots would have destroyed and devoured, not taken away everything, bag and all. This fact alone, and the scent of...
"Fur."
Mistress Briarsuckle turned away from the scene of the crime and stalked to a spot she had been preparing for a while. Not personally, just... mentally. It had been quite her good fortune to see it, in fact. Nature in its most raw and vicious moment... most tragic, too. A pair of carcasses in a glen, deep enough that the cawing, creeping things hadn't quite eaten them down to nothing. The Necromancer strode between them, observing the damage done to each other. Claw and fang and jaw and rage had ripped and gouged into both. She wasn't sure how the two males had come to blows, and didn't much care. It was still fascinating to watch. Then, when it was over, and the victor died mere bits after the loser, a worm of an idea wriggled in her knotty skull.
She sang the Bone Song. She worked her will with muttering words and lilting voice in a tongue that made all other creatures shrink from that shadowy glade. As she spoke she worked her magic, poured her mastery and her finesse with rot and corpse and resurrection into the two bodies. At the apex of her spell, her hands dove under her cloak and each one came out with a well.
There was a hideous, tearing, liquid sound as each were buried in a chest of rotting meat and pulsing muscle. By the time she stood back up... they were doing much the same.
"Come."
They obeyed. Padding after her. Bidden as hounds, instead of what they had been. She led hem back to the hole and pointed.
"Scent."
A pair of snuffling noses rooted around and Mistress Briarsuckle watched with her usual expression of disdain and smugness. She truly was growing beyond the realms her mentors had always imposed on her. Fortunate few she had to endure, of course, but still... the very nerve. Who else among her race could claim dominion over such beasts? That dwarfed her, that dwarfed men, now bound to her sure as a sword to a soldier or a quill to a scribe? She did this, her power... her destiny would not be denied. The Rotten could wait a while, though. This could not be allowed to stand. An outraged ignored once would only be repeated, so an example would be set.
She waited until her new Gaunts had finished getting the scent, looking up at her with dead-eyed patience. She extended a hand towards where the footprints had left, tramping over dirt and vegetation.
"Kill. All who were here. All who stole from me. Kill them all. Bring back their heads."
With a low growl the two risen wolves bounded into the woods, and for the first time, the Necromancer smiled.