The Conjured and the exiles

Reveiws are always welome.

(sumery)


A young witch is exiled from her family consumed by guilt and hunted down for reasons she dose not comprehend. Matters get worse when she falls in to the hands of a powerful noble who just might be her only chance of survival but at what cost? Her brother desperate to save her joins the area where he finds love and a growing evil within. And so their tales twine together haunted by there past and forced to enter world ruled over by sadistic and all powerful nobles, a world of assassins, intrigue, magic and dark seduction.


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It had all ended they had found her. She was stupid; she hadn’t been careful enough and now they had found her. They had been able to ambush her because she had grown too complacent in her new life. She had thought that she was safe. She had even given out her true name. She was stupid she deserved to be caught.

They had been cunning, they silenced her, rendering her powerless, there were nine of them, and she wondered whether to be flattered or not. Nine witch hunters for just one woman. She knew that she hadn’t stood a chance as the pounding of her heart beet in her ears faded. There are many kinds of silence the young woman mused as a strange kind of calm washed over her. The quiet now was of the night settling deeply around her, and amongst the ruins there held the reverent stillness of a crypt.

The first silence she had ever known was filled with terror, as a child closing her eyes and praying that she was not found, not daring even to breath lest that give away her hiding place. She knew the silence of despair, when all you had has been taken and you can no longer cry. She knew the intent silence of a hunter. And she even knew the bitterly triumphant silence of one who was escaping, one who was alone and free for the first time. Now the silence was empty. No one moved or spoke. She was empty of all emotion; dyeing as they watched. Were they triumphant, relived or even a little sad at her passing? But despite the agony it was peaceful. She didn’t have to run and hide any more she didn’t have to strive all she had to do was lay hear and it would be over.

Someone couched down by her a familiar face, an old friend and old enemy.Even after all this time the betrayal was still so raw. His voice was as gentle as she had remembered it. He had taught her to sing, he had been kind to her. ‘It’s all over now little one, the blood is cleansed.’

‘What did he mean by that?’

But I don’t have to run anymore she thought. I don’t want to run anymore. She thought of her life how it had been of those she loved. She had no place in their world now; she knew too much and could never go back. If she died the guilt couldn’t follow her. Perhaps they were right it was kindest that she died. She looked for her families faces even as her vision began to fade. But before she slipped into the black she heard a voice.

‘Hay stop what’s going on! Surrender your weapons!’

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Merus carried the still unconscious body of the mysterious young captive in his arms. His plate armor clanking as he made his way down the spiraling stairs descending in to the darkness of the dungeon.

‘Dam, I can’t believe that all the cells upstairs are full.’ His companion carrying the torch cursed. ‘Bloody captain Wald, I bet these are all in there for begging, or drunkness and the like he really has to learn just to let some things go!’

Merus harrumphed in agreement before walking back to the empty cell in front of the stairs. ‘This one is free.’

‘I don’t much like putting a woman down here with all these bastards and mad men.’ Harold replied.

‘Well, where else can we put her?’

‘Good point. I suppose she can have the cell all to herself.’

Merus pushed the bared door open and a little more gently than he had been carrying the young woman he laid her upon the sleeping slab while his hand strayed further south than was strictly necessary. He stood slowly and looked down at her, ‘She doesn’t look like she could hurt a fly.’

‘Well the Witch hunters are sure she was the one who killed their one of theire number. They have been looking for her all through Nheim, but she managed to sneak past the border and has been hiding out since. But they caught wind of her and came looking. Apparently she’s a witch always said you can never trust a pretty woman.’ His friend replied stepping closer and lighting the torches in the cell.

‘Doesn’t look like this cell has been used for a while!’

‘There is something not quite right about all of this, the guys from Rulo’s watch said that those hunters were tying to ritually murder her or something. Who knows with folk who use magic, unnatural lot the lot of them and from forigners Nheim as well. At any rate she has been sleeping like the dead for the last four days, and when she’s awake its like she isn’t there at all.’

‘A spell?’

‘Duno. But they did a real number on her. Bleading her to death. And it looked like they were going burn her on a pyre. Before her trial they even got some expert mage from the royal collage to heal her, said she has never seen anything like it, and couldn’t help. But the captain in charge suspected that the mage knew more than she was letting on.’ The guard continued enthusiastically as he shut the gate.

‘I think that girl has a story behind her.’

‘They always do.’ His friend sighed ‘ Perhaps you should ask her brother, he’s working in the bounty hunters guild, He was here yesterday. He was away so missed all of this, someone said to me that he was now fighting in the arena trying to make the money to pay her fine, otherwise it’s the axe for her.’

‘Now that’s some stones. Talk about brotherly love’ Merus laughed as the ascended the stairs. ‘Hay, do you know who he is? I might put some money on him.’

‘Yer, fights for Sarol, he’s a north man judging by the size of him but i think he's actuly from Nheim you can tell by color of his hair that bown with a gold tint, fights in a heavy raiment he has a long sword, and my friend on the inside says that he is pretty handy with it. Apparently he’s fighting up to four matches a day!’

‘I don’t know if he hasn’t got a noble sponsor yet he can’t be that good.’

‘Everyone knows Sarol is a good judge of talent; he’s new so no ones heard of him yet that’s all. Tomorrow is his advancement match.’ Harold replied thoughtfully, ‘I might put some gold on him myself.’

‘I don’t know I trusted you last time and was down seven heads! Asta almost killed me when I lost all that money.’

With that the watch guards left with their torch leaving nothing but the flickering flames of the dungeon lights that cast more shadow than light.


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For a while consciousness came and went, Daen vaguely remembered a man in armor feeding her something milky, and telling her about someone, a brother, her brother?….something about the arena, and wining a matches fighting up to three a day. But Leoff wasn’t an arena fighter? Or was that just part of her dream.

Her dreams were strange, always changing some were memories she had seen Leoff when he had first joined the bounty hunters, she had been so angry at him lying about his age to get in. ‘its alright sis, I wont be doing any actual fighting I’m only an apprentice.’ He was such a crap liar but then everything changed again.

She was standing on her homes hill top garden, looking down over the rest of Nheim, the steep valleys, the homes cut into the golden rock like her own, rivers and woodland, the day was bright and her eye was caught by a white butterfly dancing amid the course upland grass. As she watched it she noted the butterfly was not white but in fact gray, she realized then that wasn’t a butterfly at all but some ash on the wind. Ash from the fires like on the night she had escaped. The sky darkened at this revelation, and to the south west a red shadow was growing, spreading out over the land, and consuming it. Fire burning the trees and the grass.

The sky was blood red and dark with smoke, and a violent wind wiped her cloak around her. She watched the destruction of her home, even as the white Luna temple pillars toppled she watched with an awed fascination. The heat scorched air scoured her lungs, then rumbling of the earth caught her attention, and the ground opened beneath her.

She let out a scream that was drowned out in the thump, thump, thump, thump, thump of an immense set of wings. Dawn broke and she was caught mid fall caught in a steal hard embrace. As something bore her aloft icy wind bit in to her, but she was not afraid, she knew in his grip she was safe as he bore her upwards towards the stars. She herd his voice rumbling like thunder, reverberating in her chest

‘ You have no place there any more. Dawn star guide in my master, he will need you to be his compass lest he lose the way….’

'But my name means the star cursed,' she protested before she woke up.

Dean was cold, shivering, and disorientated; she let out a soft moan and opened her sleep caked eyes. Her mind was still dream dazed and she had expected to see open skies instead she saw a stone arch above her, like a crypt. Like once before, she had woken up in a crypt. A few moments later she recalled herself. ‘I’m alive.’ She thought not sure whether she was relived or disappointed. Looking down all she was wearing was a long rough cloth shirt, she wondered where her other clothes had gone. As she sat up she winced, her ribs were bruised and she wondered who had done that as well, hoping that fate spat on them.

She looked around it was dimly lit by a torch and she realized she was in a cell. There was a window but it was set high on the wall, to high to look out of and to fitly to let anything but the dim impression of light through. She was lying on a stone slab covered by a thin layer of straw and sack cloth. Shackles hung on the wall, and she noticed the shackles on her wrists. ‘So, I’m in prison then.’ She murmured to herself, her voice croaked with disuse.

On shaky legs she managed to reach the table the other side of the cell and sipped some water from the jug. She also saw the loaf of bread, which she helped herself to. As she cast her eyes around she noticed that the cell was a strange shape, barrel vaulted with stairs like a tunnel, as if it was made in to a jail cell as an after thought. In the straw at her feet she noticed the cells last occupier. A bare Skelington, the bones aged and bleached. A shudder passed through her unbidden.

Carefully she tested her joints. Gingerly bending and twisting. For the most part however her injuries seemed minor, the aces and pains it turned out were nothing more than stiffness from disuse and the cold. All of the wounds had gone, not even a scars to mark their memory on her wrists.

Eventually she gained the courage to go and look out of her bars. Hopefully she could ask someone what had gone on. As she approached the bars she could vaguely make out a shape in the gloom that was the opposite cell a ragged old man looking intently. He chattered his teeth at her.

‘Excuse me but could you tell me what is this place?’ She asked hopefully.

‘Pretty little fallen thing, smashed up wings like a butterfly.’ The old man began to sing harshly ‘The guards bring you down and down, to this hell, what did you do to end up hear, are you a mad savage dog, or are you just bad, bad, bad!’

The old man began to cackle loudly, pleased with his impromptu little song. Daen backed away he was obviously cracked as cobbles. The old man then noticing his audience had retreated scuttled to the back of his cell. Daen sat down against the rough stone wall when something was thrown through her bars; it rolled to a stop by her foot. It was a skull. The old mans shrill voice rang out again.

‘You’re going to die down here girl! Left to rot forgotten down hear like him.’