Ferial Tialle
Shi Tialle
The goblins' deliberation was short, and it ended with their diviner stepping forward and reaching out her hands. Hashiir responded wordlessly, stepping forwards and taking her hands in his. His eyes flickered shut for a moment, before both of the figures started to emit light: a soft, pulsing luminescence which shifted hue whenever Sereth thought he had a fix on exactly what colour it was. Running from one figure to the other, then back again in a constantly moving ribbon of light which would have been far more comforting had it not eventually started to peel away from the two figures. Thickening and twisting around them, it formed a slowly-growing cocoon of lambent fire around the two mages.
Without warning, the cocoon shifted into dozens of cards - some which Sereth recognised from the Deck, but more which were entirely alien to him. A rope, blood dripping from its countless writhing knots, a plague of locusts crawling over a convulsing, humanoid figure, a burning bridge made of nothing but polished bones, a shadow wielding a sword of purest light. The flashed by and past, a whirling band of motion and images and frozen tableaus which made no sense to his untrained eye - a tall, graceful figure swathed in holy incense squared off against a lumbering silhouette hefting an axe, a wolf howled wordlessly as a contraption of bronze and steel jerkily advanced on it, a cockroach burned as a murder of crows fell from the skies, flesh shedding from their bones. None, Sereth mused, looked like particularly good omens.
Then the cards changed their motion rapidly, stacking themselves into a deck which floated between the two magic-users. For a moment it simply hung there, before the magic washed out of the air with an audible snap. The aura around the two mages vanished, and Hashiir stepped back, blinked twice, and studied the still-floating deck for a moment. A small smile split his face, a flicker of lightning arcing between his teeth as he reached out slowly and grabbed the deck out of the air, flipping over the first card and letting it float there, in mid-air. Even from this far out, Sereth could make out the beetle-like shape etched onto its surface.
Hashiir laughed.
"I was expecting something...vague." He grinned, "This? This I can do work with. It's a full Deck, see, but not of Tialle style - it's Aspected all wrong for that. Not Aspected with your magic either, it's...something else. Something interesting."
"And did you learn anything?" Morog interjected.
"Oh, like you wouldn't believe." Hashiir agreed, "They're not lying to us."
"Very well then. Sekme, Great Diplomat of the Priezastis tribe, emissary of Greitas the Cunning, Vadas of the Gaisras clan, Didyis Vadas of the goblins of Wolf Forest - do you know where God of Chaos shall emerge into this world?"
Celin River
Mercin
The army was slowly fording the river - oh so very slowly - the bhoerkaral lowing as they laboriously dragged the supply wagons through the churned-up muck and silt of the river. A thin line of infantry was slowly collapsing behind them, a wall of interlocking shields which dared any enemy to try and catch them off-guard. Not that they had received the barest hint of any enemy so far, of course, but that did nothing but make this a wonderful time for their hypothetical enemy to do horrible things to them. And with what scattered reports they had received - rumours more than reports, to be honest - said that they were going up against a cavalry-heavy force.
Kurush grunted to himself. This was going to be another one of those campaigns.
"A problem, mage?" Thal-Jarnden asked, the hunchbacked Kobold glancing up from her ever-present map scrolls.
"Not yet." Kurush sighed, "But I don't like any of this."
"We have dealt with warriors of the horse before." Thal-Jarnden shrugged, "And is it not our duty to provide the near-vulnerables with protection?"
"We want a buffer zone before they arrive in our own cities." Kurush snorted, "Duty plays very little into it."
"A outlook of cynicism to take, mage."
"That doesn't sound like you're refuting me, Priestess."
The kobold chittered to herself, but said nothing more. Kurush likewise lapsed into silence as he watched a bhoerkaral stumble in the muck, the wagon tilting for a moment before it regained its balance and ploughed onwards. An omen, perhaps - Kurush had never possessed Hasiir's talent for divination. It had always seemed too much like guesswork, twanging a strand of the spider's web and praying that the spider would flee instead of biting. No, for him had always been the tried-and-tested method of grabbing a broom and sweeping the spider away.
"Such morose expressions sit ill on a face such as yours, mage." A voice came, and Kurush glanced up to see Nuriene ambling towards him. The half-dwarf was grinning again, a gesture which always sent shivers up the mage's spine. Magic was one thing, but at least a grinning mage would only kill the people he wanted to. A grinning sapper was a threat to anyone and everyone within half a mile. And when that sapper was Nuriene, Kurush extended that threat radius still further. He'd seen her shear a mountain-face clean off before.
"Such a frenzied expression sits ill on yours, sapper."
She grimaced.
"Does it not intrigue you, at the very least?"
"I have long since learned to never be intrigued by a sapper." Kurush sighed, "What is it you want?"
"Well, you know how Mahatats died of sepsis last night?"
"I was not aware of this." Kurush rumbled, "I was never fortunate enough to meet her."
"Fortunate's a funny word to use." Nuriene reflected, "But you know her horse is still alive?"
"I could have assumed that would have been the case, yes."
"Well, she's gone and given it to me."
"I can assure you, my nightmares have enough material without you adding to them."
"And I've actually got some ideas for how to use it." Nuriene ploughed onwards, ignoring the half-giant's comments, "So I'd like to keep it."
"I'm not in a position to say anything on that matter." Kurush sighed, shoulders heaving like a mountain range, "Ask Thal-Jarnden for this boon."
"I can provide no such gift-boon." Thal-Jarnden interrupted, "She is my equal in the eyes of our Lady."
Kurush glanced between the two for a moment, before sighing and nodding slowly.
"Of course." He sighed after a moment. Keruli's cult was more complex than he cared to consider.
"You can have the horse, Nuriene. No, don't tell me what you have in mind - I don't want to know."
"My greatest thanks, mage." The half-dwarf grinned, mock-bowing before scampering off, calling over shoulder: "You won't regret this!"
There was a moment of silence as she left before Kurush glanced to Thal-Jarnden.
"We're going to lose a battalion before the sun comes up." He predicted. The kobold simply chittered to herself at that. Behind them, the last of the rearguard had forded the river and were now forming up once more to continue the march. Ahead, he could already see a cloud of dust as the first ranging-battalion began to spread across their path, their Triasse no doubt spreading out in front of them. It was a procedure the Seventh Army had grown used to, from their time combating the tribes which circled and stalked Shai Tialle from the outside and the monstrosities which lurked within the borders.
Seventh Army, Kurush mused. Two thousand infantry, six hundred Triasse, roughly the same number of sappers and three mages of varying ability. It was a not-insignificant deployment of force, for an enemy they knew nearly nothing about. With any luck, the locals would help them to develop a more defined picture of the enemy's size and true composition, but it was more than likely that they would have to perform their own forms of reconnaissance when they entered the true theatre of operations. The thought of traditional Tialle scouting against an unknown but highly mobile force sent chills running down his spine.
Then he thought of Nuriene on a horse and the chills redoubled.