A Scripta

Kay Summersby advanced quietly through the woods. Her husband, Frost Guardian, would be proud of her tracking skills, learned from the Arctican men and their ability to move through the icy tundra of their homeworld quickly and quietly.

The Circle of Thorns on Nerva didn’t stop their ritual. They had made recent encroachments on Arctican-held territory, bringing their version of religion and power to the masses. Some went for that, but since Kay was in charge of making sure the culture of the conquered world was kept in servitude of the culture of the Arctican Occupation Force, she had to make sure that there would be no underlying centers of resistance.

Kay, once known as the “hero” Kill Favored, raised her sword and, with a short, angry cry, headed into the fray. Quickly, cleanly, she separated the headfrom the Madness Mage’s body, then turned her focus on a demon. The demon roared, and she gutted it as well. It didn’t take long for the Circle to be dispatched in this same, gruesome way. She turned to look at the man who she meant to save and chastise, and stopped short.

“Kay,” he said.

She looked at the man, who looked twice as old as she did, though they were both the same age. She straightened, smiled, though there was no emotion in it. In fact, she had hoped he would have been dead.

“Sage,” she spat.

“I see your husband allowed you to actually do something.”

She narrowed her eyes at him; the last time they had met, over ten years ago, was the last time they were amicable to each other, choosing to enforce a truce so that some of his “students” could be released from her husband’s “care.” She had told him of Arctican culture that meant women needed to be kept far away from war; though that had changed over the past few years with the Arctican men seeing women and men fight side by side in their pitiful attempts to extricate the more powerful and advanced Arcticans. “It matters to you?”

“It does, since it encroaches on certain interests.”

“Oh, wait, wait, don’t tell me. That little mage we killed last year? I think I remember her name as the Bowman. Some elflike-creature, let me think.”

Sage waited, his old man’s face a mask. The only indication of his growing rage was the darkness gathering around him.

“Your wife, right?”

Sage now smiled, though it was more like a smirk. “This, my dearest, has nothing to do with her, but everything to do with your husband.”

“Frost Guardian has brought peace to these Isles, prosperity to the strong as it should be. You called the Resistance cowards once, if I’m not mistaken.”

“A man can change his mind.”

“Since his wife’s now a martyr.”

Again, he smirked. “So will the Iceman think as well.” He raised his hands, and she brought the sword up for a parry – it had some protection against magic, but wasn’t purely magical. A darkness covered them, and then he was gone.

“Coward,” she snapped, walking over to the spot where he had been. She peered; it looked like a hole.

“Go down the rabbit hole to Wonderland,” Sage chuckled. “You will not be missed.”

She turned to see him, his eyes blazing red, and suddenly she saw horrible, terrifying images before her eyes and coursing through her mind like the hounds of the Wild Hunt. She tried to scream, but there was no air to make a sound… Cold Soldier, my love, where are you…was her last thought as she passed into oblivion.