Smite 'em!

Teysa dropped into a fighting stance and spread her feet. She had fought wolves before, though usually only when the beasts were maddened with hunger or pawns of some evil master. They were not brave creatures-- each would take their cues from the others. On the other hand, if they sensed weakness, they would descend on her in a second.

She couldn't shake the feeling that the creatures all around her weren't actually wolves. They were wolf-shaped, but only because someone or something had impressed that shape upon them. Who could have done such a thing? She had no time to wonder now, but such sorcery seemed beyond the arts of the drow.

They moved like puppets. Their legs bent and stretched as they circled Teysa, but she got the impression that was just for show. They flowed from place to place in the time it took her to blink. A crackling hum accompanied them, a sound like a swarm of hellish bees. A whiff of foulness crossed Teysa's nose and her face crinkled in disgust. The wolves smelled like decay, the moist and rotten smell of an open grave. Their teeth were jagged chunks of slate, their eyes sickly yellow pools of dim luminescence. They left an oily and insubstantial trail behind them as they circled.

One of them coiled and pounced at her. She met it with her mace. Thi'vo's spear had passed harmless through the wolf's body, but Teysa felt her mace connect with something solid. There was a brilliant flare and the wolf exploded. Tendrils of shadow coiled around her mace and wrist, but the rest of the wolf blew away like ash. Its fellows growled at her and gnashed their jaws. One lunged forward and bit at her ankle. She pulled away just in time and its jaws closed over empty air. As she jumped back, something snuffled behind her. It was the only warning she got-- a faint, wet sound, like the panting of a dog-- but it was enough. She pivoted out of the way just as something heavy and dark flew past her. It landed heavily where she had been standing a moment ago and turned, paws scrabbling ferociously against the stone, just in time to meet her descending hammer. Once again, she had the sense that the thing she was striking was not really real in any recognizable sense. Her blow passed through its snarling face, but there was some solid core at the heart of the thing, and it wilted before her. The wolf collapsed on the ground and disintegrated in the time it took her to draw a breath. A dark stain on the rocks was the only sign that it had ever been there at all.

The rest of them bayed furiously at her, but they did not dare approach closer. Teysa took a step towards the nearest and it flitted away. It perched on a rock a few feet from her and hissed.

Teysa gasped as the power inside her surged up. She felt like a flooding river, its banks burst by rain, water sluicing madly across dams and bridges alike. She flung out her left arm with her fingers spread. A dazzling ray of golden light poured out of her palm and struck the wolf with a ringing slap. It shuddered, abrading under the beam, motes of light shimmering in the air as it dissolved. Shadowy contrails poured away and dissolved. She held the beam as long as she could. Her hand blistered and burned, but she did not stop until every last speck of darkness had been hosed off the rocks.

The other wolves reared back in confusion, then as one they howled and leapt for her. Teysa found herself in a tangle of black limbs and oily bodies. She bent, turned, struck, pivoted and smashed. Jaws closed around her ankle and she screamed in pain and rage. She kicked out her leg and the wolf went flying. Another landed on her back; she reached back, pulled it off her and threw it to the ground. Before it could regain its footing she stamped down hard on its skull. There was a brittle crack and it stopped moving and began to melt away. Another, torn from her arm, its jaw shattered by a thrust of her mace. Another, ripped in half with her bare hands. Another. Another. Another.

It took her a moment to realize that she stood alone. The rocks all around her were spattered with grimy residue like coal dust. She was breathing hard and covered in bleeding wounds and streaks of grimy shadow, but she was alive. Even as she watched, her cuts and scrapes began to heal. The blood that oozed from them was the color of molten amber. She watched in wonder as her body repaired itself.

"Tey!" Aliara's voice startled her out of her reverie. She turned to see the half-elf, the remaining drow, and Jez'ria and her fellow driders. They were all staring at her in awe. Aliara ran to Teysa and threw her arms around her shoulders. "Oh, Tey!" she said, her voice cracking with emotion. "I was so afraid! The way you... that was amazing! What were those things?"

"I don't know," Teysa replied, extricating herself as gently as she could. "Servants, I think. There is something more than drow behind this. Who is that?"

She pointed at the man on lizard-back she had seen earlier. He and his archers were still volleying arrows towards the Matron, but they had noticed Teysa. She wasn't exactly easy to miss. He stared at her, then turned to the man next to him, an exceptionally tall and broad drow leaning on a quarterstaff. Whatever he said, the tall drow nodded, then stepped down off the rocky ledge they were standing on and vanished into the crowd.

"Lockh." Teysa turned to see Lil'esh standing at the front of her little group. By unspoken agreement she seemed to be in charge of the drow trainees. "I don't know who that is, but he's wearing the banner of House Lockh. These soldiers, too. I think they're his house-guard. His militia, you know." She looked confused. "I don't know why they'd want to do something like this, though. It's very risky. This must be all of his guards-- his holdings in the City are undefended."

"We'll get to the bottom of this," Teysa said. Her mouth was set in a grim line. "We will. But we have a job to do first. This isn't over." Once again, she had the sense of an echo-- her words seemed to linger in the air.

She marched towards the frontline, her troop falling in around her. She had to restrain herself from leaping. Her wings flapped and twitched impatiently. She could feel them, faintly, like a sunbeam shining on her back on a summer afternoon.

Up ahead, the Matron and her guards clashed with a phalanx of pike-wielding drow. She was wielding a sword made of black fire that sprouted from her palm, while the driders around her slashed with spears. Slowly but surely, they were pushing the drow back. Teysa fell in alongside them.

"Matron!" she shouted. The Matron spared her a glance, and her eyes widened.

"Teyssssssa!" she hissed. "What hasssss happened to hyou?"

"Later! There's some... dark magic behind this!" Teysa grunted with exertion. A soldier in front of her jabbed wildly with his polearm. She blocked it with her mace, then lunged forward and knocked him back into his fellows with a sledgehammer blow. Her wings snapped out to their full extent and shone with unearthly radiance. The front line of drow reeled back, shielding their eyes and cursing.

She caught another whiff of the rotten grave-smell a moment before a tide of darkness washed over the soldiers. It crashed like a wave, burying them in foulness and sinking into their skin. The soldiers who had been staggering back in disarray a moment before stepped forward in eerie unison. Black veins stood out on their faces and their eyes were pools of oil. They moved like automatons, stepping forward and slashing fearlessly. One blade bit into a drider guard's leg and severed it cleanly. She screeched in pain and ducked backward as ichor gouted from the wound.

If Teysa looked closely, she could see shadowy chains binding the soldiers. Their faces twitched as though they were fighting to maintain their serene expressions. They stepped, swung, and stepped again. Teysa was **** to fall back to defend herself. She swung at the nearest soldier and her mace rang from his breastplate with a heavy clang. He did not falter, even though the blow had put a ten-inch crack in his armor and surely shattered a rib. The soldier turned to her, gave her an emotionless stare, and swung his halberd. It seemed to take forever to cross the distance between them; Teysa could see it move, and she knew she would never get her mace up in time to block it.

Something cannoned into her and knocked her over. The halberd hissed by overhead. She sprawled on the rocks and rolled over to see a ragged-looking male drow. He wore tattered leather clothes and a matching cap and his face was twisted in abject terror. He stared at her and his mouth moved soundlessly. His hands raised in surrender, but before he could say anything, Aliara fell on him from above. She drove him to the ground with a knee in the small of his back and wrenched his head up, spilling his cap and revealing a balding crop of white hair. Her knife was at his throat in a second.

"Wait!" Teysa cried, and Aliara looked up at her in confusion. "He just..."

"Surrender!" the man babbled. "I surrender, I surrender completely, please, don't kill me, please..."

"Why not?" Aliara hissed. "Invader! Murderer!"

"I'm not!" he managed to squeak. "I'm not! I swear! This wasn't my idea! It was his! Korrio! I swear! Please, please don't--"

"Alright!" Teysa cut him off as she climbed to her feet. "Alright, we won't kill you. Aliara, take him prisoner, have the trainees guard him."

Aliara looked up at her in incomprehension. "Tey, we can't--"

"Oh, thank you, thank you so much..." the man fell to his knees and held his hands together. "You have to run, you all do, you don't understand--"

His eyes rolled back into his head and he collapsed bonelessly to the ground. Aliara winced and rubbed her hand. "What?" she said, seeing Teysa's expression. "He's just knocked out. I'm very good."

"Take him to the back," Teysa ordered. "Maybe he knows something about why this is happening."

"I know why!" the Matron hissed. "There isssss a witch-blood driving thessssssse wretchessss. Find her! I will hold the line!"

Teysa nodded. She tensed her legs, then leapt thirty feet into the air. Her wings unfurled behind her and beat at the air and she soared over the enemy formation. Her heart leapt up into her throat. She was flying now, really flying, on Agamor's wings. All of her fear, her misery, her sense of abandonment-- all washed away in an instant. She was fighting for Agamor now, and He was fighting at her side. She dared not question his long absence. He was here now, and that was what counted. With His help she could root out this evil and restore peace and order.

There! In the middle of the formation there was a circular void. Something dark moved at the center of it. It looked humanoid, but Teysa couldn't make out any details at this distance. The drow soldiers seemed to be keeping their distance. The figure capered to and fro, waving its arms madly. Lines of shadowy **** converged at the center of the circle and poured outward. The grave-smell was overwhelming here.

Teysa hefted her mace, tucked her wings in and dove like a comet.