Winter's Fury - Volume Two of The Saga of the Twelves (67 page)

The Prēost leapt for the
door, trying to turn the knob he no longer had the mental capacity
to work.

It would not have matter
though, even if he had been able to open the door. She was too
fast. She pounced upon him, yanking him to the center of the room,
rounding upon him as she spun him in her grasp. Her hand was at his
throat before he could blink.

“
Sing Prēost,” she
snarled. Her eyes became void.

The Mheto-Prēost began to
shake in her grasp.

“
Sing, I said.”

With a mind of their own,
the bowels of the shriveled Vülfen loosened. He fouled the floor
about his bare feet.

She tightened her
grip.

He sang then, loud and
clear, a most detailed and lengthy song indeed.

After a short time though,
the Seeker began to frown at what she learned. The great
Metohkangmi was not going to like this, not in the least. These
bumbling idiots might well have upset the entire Grand
Design!

She redoubled her efforts
with the Mheto-Prēost, making sure he told her everything. Soon his
singing became ragged, shrill.

Loud thuds came from the
other side of doors leading into his private chamber.

She had sealed them
against intruders long ago.

From the bed, the beaten
Nixy smiled from the depths of her slumber. She was enjoying the
sound of the Mheto-Prēost’s melodious voice as he sang for the
Unhuman Being. This was why she was the dreaded Stiletto of the
Storm.

She was the
Seeker.

What she sought, above all
else, was truth.

*****

Where?

He opened his eyes and saw
nothing but white. It shocked him, because when he had closed them
before his hibernation, he had seen nothing but black. It was cold
as it should be. He was still buried as he should have been,
sheltered from the weather for the night. But the lack color
surrounding him was all wrong. Snow was not supposed to be this
hue.

I am where?

He moved in the slightest,
pulling one of his twig-like limbs from the nourishing earth. The
tiny leaves sprouting from his wrist swayed and bobbed before his
eyes. He pushed the discomforting precipitation further from his
face. He could inspect it better when it about six inches from his
sharp, angular visage. It was the color of the bark of a redwood
tree.

Of course, he did not know
what a redwood tree was and never would have made that particular
interpretation of himself.

He gazed at it, intent. It
felt like snow. It had the same consistency as snow. But it smelled
much different. It did not carry the after-scent of charcoal or ash
or soot - or the long-time dead. No, it smelled strange, alien and
unnatural. It smelled fresh and moist,
clean
. He frowned at it. His long
eyelashes, looking more like the stamen of a flower than anything
hair-like, dipped and dangled. They were bulbous at the ends – ends
that were full with pollen – and moved in time with his
visage.

What is this?

He pulled his other arm
from the cool earth. It had drawn the needed nutrients from the
surrounding soil, strengthening him, making him grow.

Yet, even that was a bit
different from what he knew. The earth felt wrong too. It gave off
an unfamiliar smell just as the snow. It was healthier than it
should have been. He could sense it
bursting
with minerals!

Astonishment made him
blink in disbelief. This ground held three, maybe four times more
nutrients than it should have. There had been far less when he had
burrowed beneath the ground to rest. He stared at the traces of
earth falling from his arm. He let the thick, pungent smell fill
his lungs. He inhaled the carbon dioxide, expelling the oxygen into
the small pocket of air cocooning him.

I must stand.

I must see.

Where I am.

He shifted his long,
knobby legs. He shook the surreal dirt from the thick bark-like
skin growing from his waist to his ankles where it ended and his
hard wooden feet began. They were toeless for the time being,
horned at the tips instead, more like the thorn of a rose
bush.

He used both hands,
shoving the gossamer snow from him, opening up the bolt hole he had
inserted himself the night before.

Only now, he was beginning
to realize where he had borrowed earlier was in a different place
altogether.

At once, ferocious winds
buffeted him. They were so brutal, they seemed to shred the
landscape about him. Above, clouds unlike any he had ever seen
seemed to boil and spit vast quantities of heavy, sticky,
white
snow as if in
anger. It was cold, but that was normal to him. He was a full-grown
Flowerling from Krëpin. He had lived with extreme cold his entire
life. But this wind and the driving snowfall was something
else.

He would have to stay put
for a while to ensure his safety. He might be mature, but he stood
no more than two and a half feet tall. He did not have enough
weight to keep the storm from tossing him about like a fallen leaf.
He would not risk any more than he had to, especially since he did
not know where he was.

He glanced around, seeing
he was still protected by the two large roots of the Ironwood he
had burrowed between the night before. Because of their height,
they protected him from the worst of the wind. He was grateful for
that.

Nonetheless, when he
peered out from the roots, when he looked out and away from the
hardwood tree, he found he could see no more than two cable-lengths
before him. This stunted line of sight permitted him to see nothing
more than a few trees, but they were fantastical and unusual. There
was some sort of underbrush as well, though he had never seen it’s
like before either.

He frowned. Beyond that,
he could see no more.

I am gone.

I am lost.

He came free from his
cocoon, but did not stand. He knew the wind, even a few inches
above the level of the roots, would be enough to pull him up and
bounce him about the forest for hours, maybe days even.

Instead, he scooted on his
bark covered rear end to the point where both of the roots met the
trunk of the Ironwood. He sought better shelter, deciding the only
thing he could do at the moment was wait. He would have to let the
storm to die down. If it did not do so during the daylight hours,
he would burrow once more into the earth. Once more, he would take
his fill of the stockpile of vitamins and minerals within. He could
not let such a bounty go to waste. He might as well have his fill.
Besides, he would need to keep himself in the best condition
possible if he were to try and survive here. Where ever here may
be.

I will wait.

Cuman Strongbranch will
wait.

He gazed down at the leafy
tufts, crisscrossed with both thick and miniscule veins - two each.
They grew from the back of his arms, between his shoulder and his
elbow. They were long and narrow, hanging down past his hands about
an inch and a half. With half a mind, he began to gather dirt from
them, placing it in his slit of a mouth. His sharp, thorn-like nose
sniffed at the earth as he brought it underneath his three nostrils
for eating. He chewed the frozen dirt in near ecstasy. It was pure
heaven to him, so full of life giving ingredients. The wide petals
growing from both sides of his face and about his forehead and chin
vibrated and shook each time he took a swallow.

To anyone peering through
the rampaging tempest, his face possessed a flower-like
look.

He crossed his legs before
him and continued to eat the remnants of dirt still clinging to
him, humming to himself to pass the time.

He could wait. It did not
bother him. Flowerlings, far and wide in the World of Storm, were
known as harbingers of infinite patience. But, they came with
occasional rudeness and a distinct hatred of a large vocabulary
too. But those aspects of himself would never enter a root-like
brain like that of Cuman Strongbranch. No, he had no use for words
of that length and complexity.

Cuman Strongbranch will
wait.

All about him, the
blizzard screamed and howled like a rabid animal.

No end in
sight.

*****

She knew something was
wrong almost at once. She did not even need to open her
eyes.

She had been in her
Council Chamber, speaking from the head of her table with the
entire Radid amassed about her, when it happened. Exactly what it
was, she had not known at the time. But now, she was beginning to
understand.

It was a
betrayal.

The final betrayal of what
had been a lifetime of misery and failure, exacted upon her by
others who strove to own what had once been hers. Long ago, hers
was a power above all others.

She had once been the
Dronning of Storm, the Consort to the great Lord Metohkangmi
himself. In an age long passed, at a time when there was no
Six-Fold Empire, no Isig-Vültriäk that ruled supreme over the World
of Storm, she had been greater than any queen. She had been the
greatest to have ever walked the annuls of time. This was far back,
when the eleven Warlords of Chaos ruled Storm, when all trembled at
their feet. This was before her one-time lover had persuaded the
Seeker to his side. This was before the titanic and catastrophic
Wars of Unification had begun. This was when she had ruled beside
the Great Maelstrom. Her voice had been second to his and none
other.

This was before her own
brethren had set plans into motion to bring her down, for it were
their schemes that had caused her to fall from the graces of her
mate.

After, he had cast her
aside like a piece of offal.

She had been Da-Magna
Furia then, the Antithues and the greatest Demon Spirit to walk the
World of Chaos. She had been the supreme leader of the Infernia,
her people. That was before her own nephew had deposed her, usurped
her throne.

It was her nephew; the
despised Asmodemus who had made it appear as though she had taken
another to her bed of fire and flame. It was he that made it look
as though she had cuckold the great lord Metohkangmi. It was he who
had trapped her in an ironclad rouse from which she could not
escape.

When her great Lord had
learned of this supposed indiscretion, he himself had cast her
aside. Weakened and without title, he had exiled her to Richuese,
the land of the outcasts. Forever destroying her dreams of ultimate
power, forever ruining her mission to rule beside him. She had
desired, longed and bled to rise above all things walking and
breathing upon that plane of undying change.

It had been a horrific
time for her - her exile. She had wandered the land alone for
centuries. Her once great powers diminished, though not gone in
full. All about Storm (then Chaos) the Wars of Unification raged
on. Ever so slow, the World of Chaos was beginning to tear itself
apart.

One faction attempted to
gain strength over another by betraying yet another. It had gone on
and on, a morass of double-dealings and alliances broken. It became
plain, even to her; the Great War would never end.

She had ignored it back
then, content to sulk within her wounded pride. She killed,
indiscriminate, wanton, throwing herself into every sort of
decadence and depravity imaginable.

Until one day. The
wallowing in self-pity, the loathing of herself, loosing herself in
the recesses of her mind, all became boring to her. It was then,
the long burning fire from within began to burn anew and she felt
something stir. Something she had yet to feel in a thousand
years.

Revenge.

She began testing the
limits of her abilities, the strength of them and that of her
reshaped constitution. She had changed her form in dramatic fashion
over the course of those early years. It took many, many more
years, and even more planning, but she did in fact rise from the
ashes of her past. She rose all the way through the ranks of the
outcasts. Until, one day, she was the Grän Herra of the Skrímsli,
the High Lady of all the Outcasts - the Fallen, the Malformed and
the Decrepit.

Into the mire of jealousy
and a sundering of faith plaguing all else in Chaos, she threw her
millions of minions behind the banners of the Lord of the Storm. He
– even after all that had happened - was still the one she believed
was the rightful ruler of her home world.

Into the fray of those
great wars, she helped turn the tide of those horrible battles
rampaging on the ground, beneath it and in the air. Where creatures
fought and died in all forms, in all places upon Chaos, where
anything was liable to occur. Nothing was off-limits.

When the Lord of the Storm
began to emerge as the penultimate victor, she and her droves of
outcasts were given a place. They were equals within the Six-Fold
Empire and some of her former dreams came to fruition. Her yearning
for revenge had simmered, but was not dead.