Iagothal: A New Menace (1/4)

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[ 94] Nymaya: Iagothal: A New Menace (1/4)
Tue Feb 24 00:53:24 2015
To: All Verminasia Reklah Ashtiel
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The pungent scent of blood and animal stink filled the air, metallic and sharp.  It was strong enough to unsettle even her battle trained steed.  She could feel the horse shift beneath her, its muscles twitching as it waited for her next command.  She'd have thought the behavior odd but the animal stench was strange - nothing she had ever smelled before. 

Her breath misted in the still air.  The evening was bitingly cold and had it not been for the grizzly business displayed before her, she would have been indoors, coiled before a warm fire.  Impatient to be home now, her thoughts turning ever toward her husband's impending return, she angled her cold blue gaze down on the sickening display spread out over the ground and set her distractions aside. 

The patrol, indicated only by a few fragments of armor and the Kayen crest on bits of blood-soaked tunics and cloaks, had been ripped apart until nothing remained of the people they had once been.  The light of the stars cast the scene before her in a pale silvered hue and pushing back her deep fur-lined cowl she took note that none of the gore had been eaten.  No, something angry had torn these men apart.  Something enraged, very powerful and perhaps not natural. 

The silence seemed heavier, more threatening, for the thought and her horse shifted again while its ears swiveled at the thick darkness in the looming trees.  The sense that the beast lurked nearby was certain but she hesitated, her gaze roaming southward.  The boarder of Iagothal was near enough and the creature's trail clear enough that it was obvious it had come from outside the province. 

Starlight glimmered pale on silver hair as she shifted the horse around to the north-west with a flexing of her legs.  The crunch of brittle sticks and leaves sounded, the soft snort of the gelding followed and slowly, she reached back to draw the sword at her left shoulder.  The folded steel of the elven blade hissed as it left the sheath and as the tip cleared, the whisper of a forbidden melody lifted into the frosted night.  She spun the blade easily in her grasp once, sending a hollow threatening metallic whistle forth and willed herself to ignore the Haunt. 

If she had calculated right, the beast's angle would take it deeper into populated farmland and one of the province's bustling market towns.  She couldn't let that happen. 

(cont.)