Freedom & Folly VIII

The night had been silent and calm before Elissa was awoken by Faan's shrill scream.

"SOMEONE'S IN THE GLADE!" She heard him scream with his ethereal voice, reaching far into her dreams and mind.

She jumped out of bed, put on shoes and grabbed her staff before even realizing what he had said. "WHAT? WHO?"

"The spirits aren't saying much, but it's big. REALLY BIG."

She slammed the door open and awoke Garrett. Then she poked her staff at Nannade's hammock. But she didn't feel any hard resistance in there.

Nannade wasn't in the hammock.

"What's going on?" Garrett asked confused.

"There's an intruder in the Glade and Nannade's gone!"

"So? Nannade's been to the Glade plenty of times. Can't she be there by herself suddenly?"

Elissa tapped his head with her staff. "No, a different kind of intruder. A big one. We need to get to her."

He put on his pants, boots, and belt with the knives. Then he followed her outside.

As Elissa, Faan and Garrett dashed up the path around the slopes to the Glade, the forest was abuzz with panic. Many spirits were in uproar. They were furious, scared. They cried for help and screamed at an unseen intruder, not knowing whether to attack or flee. Even Garrett seemed to notice something.

"This air smells of fear and anger. What the taff is happening?"

"I don't know, but the girl must have drawn something through the stream of life force. Something from far away." she was getting short of breath.

Garrett overtook her and went on ahead.

Elissa called out to him. "STOP! Whatever it is you can't handle it."

He got back to her and helped her along. "Talk less, run more!"

The forest was growing more and more quiet, as animals and spirits fled from the Glade. Then, a droning took over the soundscape. A droning of both mundane and ethereal nature. They came closer to the source of the droning, closer to the Glade.

They arrived at the bridge across the crevice and there, on the stone block altar, was Nannade. She was in her undergarments, kneeling, arms raised up to the open sky. The altar, the stone slab and she herself were covered in runes written in her own blood. A presence was with her. An immense amount of power flowed from the Glade, even the trees were shaking in fear. Elissa took the lead and strode onto the Glade. "NANNADE!" The girl reacted slowly but with confidence. "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?! WHAT IS THIS?"

The absence of any spirits, except for the presence droning in the centre, was deafening. Something was in there with her. She looked at Elissa and that's when something struck her.

Elissa was at the edge of the large stone slab, but she was close enough to see Nannade's eyes. And they were not golden like the grain in late summer anymore. They were green, like fresh leaves in spring. Her face was different, too. And a presence coiled around her. Black as night with scales shining like stars. A long cut ran across her left forearm. She smiled a big toothy smile.

Faan jumped from Elissa's shoulder and moved in the girl's path.

"This does not concern either of you two." Nannade said to him.

A puff of blue smoke exploded around Faan and he had turned into a huge lion with flowing mane and blinking claws. "I can't let you pass, kitten!" He stood up on his hind legs in an attempt to intimidate her, but she simply ducked under his swiping paws and was on her path directly towards Garrett. When Faan tried to pounce her, the presence that coiled around Nannade lashed out, with ethereal fangs it bit the attacker. Faan fell to the floor, reverted to his original form, squirming in pain.

A sharp pain, like a searing whip struck Elissa's mind. Her legs gave in and a voiceless screaming reverberated throughout her thoughts. "WHAT DID YOU DO? GET IT OUT OF MY HEAD!" she screamed, pulling her hair as if she hoped to get the pain out of there.

Nannade got down from the slab and walked past her, directly at Garrett, still grinning.

"You said I'd never catch up to you. But turns out I didn't need to follow your footsteps, I just had to take a step to the side, onto a new path, a path only for me, a path you could have never taught me."

Garrett's face bore nothing but disgust and hatred. "You crossed the one line we never cross. Why?"

"Not really." She raised her hand, and the presence coiled around it to stretch its head with the green eyes towards Garrett. It was dripping with darkness, evaporating into shadows. "It was always there. You tried to protect me from it. But it was always truer to the cause of my protection than you were."

Garrett took a throwing knife into each hand and got ready to fight. "I'm sorry, Nannade. You need to be ended, here and now."

Elissa could only watch as Nannade and Garrett went toe to toe. Tears ran down her face, the droning had stopped and silence gripped the forest tight enough to suffocate her, but in her head, there was still the screaming thoughts of pain.

Garrett started his assault, fierce but controlled. Nannade dodged his strikes and kicks with ease, but unlike during their sparring, she barely moved her legs. Nannade's upper body bent and swayed out of the way as if her spine was a rope. Her strikes came as her body swung back into position and were precisely placed. With claws so fast they turned into whistling blades, she retaliated every strike. So far, Garrett hadn't been hit, but his window of opportunity for his assault shrank every time he dared to make a move. She moved her limbs and body like two independent entities, she looked at his blind spots and weak points for her next attack, and did not even blink while her body blocked his attacks.

Garrett knew he would lose the initiative when she started pushing him back. He had to make a lethal move, he had to stop holding back. A straight stab from his lower left was his last attempt. Without looking, she caught his hand. With a quick kick into his armpit, she disabled his left side, and he dropped the knife. A knee to his face, and a left-hand jab to the neck, sank him to the floor. She was looking down on him with a face that told of years of waiting for this moment.

He collected his thoughts and send an invisible fist her way. A split second before he let his mind SNAP the force into existence, her face changed, as if she was seeing what he did, and anticipated it with glee.

Nannade was flung backwards as the full force of the fist hit her chest. She was confused for a moment, but her body already moved back up again. Garrett used this opportunity, he collected his thoughts, inhaled deeply and remembered the one spell he always saved in the back of his mind. He had barely ever used it, but always recited it in his head, for moments like these. His hand shot forward, a finger pointed towards Nannade, and as he cast that which would rend her flesh from bone, a drop of purple energy pooled at his fingertip. "NO!" Elissa's voice boomed across the glade and the drop of purple burst into a cluster of lightning tendrils before him. The flux poured out of the wound that had been dealt to his arcane weavings, and smashed him to the floor.

"NO! STOP!" Cried Elissa again, after she countered Garrett's spell. She raised a hand and vines and roots creeping across the Glade's floor entangled both combatants tightly. Neither of the two had given up yet. Garrett got back up and tried to repeat his gesture, but the vines entangled him, twisted his limbs, and forced him into submission, turning his head away from Nannade. Elissa wouldn't even allow him to look at the girl.

"Stop it! Stop it!" she pressured both of them. "It's over. I rule here and I say stop!"

Nannade was still struggling, Elissa made the vines twist her into submission too. But it didn't work, she simply wriggled herself free from their choke and slithered out of the hold as if they were a loose pile of rope. More vines entangled her, and she stopped struggling as they finally constricted her neck. She tried to turn her head to glare at Elissa, but she denied her even that.

"It's OVER. This clawing at stabbing ends NOW! You're both under arrest."