Unleashed

Screams echoed in the air. As they continued, Cayla was amazed to realise they were not her own.

The sounds of dull thuds drowned the screams out, as 10 score white clad bodies dropped to the floor almost simultaneously nearby. She watched their life leak from them in spurts of claret, seeping through their uniforms and down and into the cracks of the cobbled streets below. She could sense it as it flowed from each of them, steady at first while their hearts kept pumping, but eventually slower as they breathed their last shallow gasps whilst their life fled from their corpses.

Metal whistled through the air, slicing clean through Cayla's bonds rather than her flesh. Feeling her hands pull apart as the ropes binding them spilt, she pushed herself to her feet. It took considerably more effort than she had expected, the excursion left both here legs under her and her arms painfully weak. But her strength didn't lay in her extremities, but elsewhere. She could feel the blood on the ground, smell it in the air, taste the coppery tang of it on her tongue. It was glorious, and she reached out to it.

It wasn't something she had ever been able to put into words, that moment when the blood called to her, and she answered it in return. Almost akin to an echo across a vast canyon, or a voice calling back to you when you had become lost in the dark. Tangible to her touch, but smoke beneath anyone else's fingers when they reached out to grasp it. She called to it, and it to her. Symphonious as they sung each other a reply, until the power flowed through her, building until it erupted in an unchecked torrent.

The crowd beneath her feet, such a cause of loathing and despair minutes ago, felt the full of her rage as it was unleashed. Sluggishly, they stopped moving as she made the blood flowing through their veins harden and cloy until it became as thick as syrup. When it couldn't flow, it burst free. Arteries and organs ruptured under the pressure, turning their limbs a sickly deep blue. They couldn't scream, and they couldn't flee. Flesh burst as the blood backed up inside people, and sought the path of least resistance to escape. Eyes popped from their sockets, noses and ears poured blood onto the floor. She couldn't stop it now. She had let it loose, and wasn't strong enough to stop it. The power flowed out of her, decimating every living thing it touched.

A hand reached out to touch her shoulder, and she nearly jumped out of her own skin in shock. She turned to find Ashur standing there, wide eyed and trembling, but seemingly untouched by her outburst. In one hand he held his axe. Gripped tightly in the other, was the collar he had removed from her neck what felt like hours before.

He removed his hood, there was no fear of his face being recognised now, the only eyes that remained to observe him were her own. Hers, and flat, blood stained eyes staring ghoulishly up at him from the floor. He stood frozen, not by magic but by fear. A fine mist of blood still swirled in the air on unseen currents, he was covered head to toe save for where his hood had covered his face. He wanted to wipe it from his eyes. He wanted to run, but he couldn't. It was a shock to both of them when he opened his mouth and realised he was still capable of speech.

"Don't hurt me." He asked her softly, in that tone voice people use on animals they think will bite them. "Please don't hurt me."

Cayla laughed aloud. The irony of her would be executioner asking her not to hurt him, oh that was sweet. He didn't need to know that she couldn't, not while he still clutched that damn collar. Let him keep it for now. He had seen what she could do. "Why didn't you strike when you should have?" she asked him.

He was starting to wish than he had, but was wise enough to not say it aloud. He answered with the truth instead. "They threatened me. My sister. Your life for hers. I never wanted to do this." he told her. Ashur felt like she was gazing into his very core as she listened. "This is a job. Just a job, that's all. Someone has to do it, don't they."

Cayla thought for a moment. The power was abating now, she could feel it dying down enough to bring back under her control. "I suppose they do. Lucky for you. Maybe lucky for your sister. What's your name?"

Reluctantly, he told her. "Ashur."

She rolled the name over her tongue. "Ashur. Ash Ur." She chuckled to herself, seemingly enjoying an amusement he wasn't privy too. "Rise."

Ashur didn't understand for a moment, he was already on his feet. Then he saw them beginning to stand amidst the devastation. Slowly pushing their way up, rolling heavy corpses and stray body parts from them as they did, until near 100 people stood amidst the carnage. Each clutched a small round bladed weapon, not unlike the tool you used for removing stone from a horses shoe. Not survivors, not quite. Accomplices perhaps. Closest to the podium, and looking up at him through blood caked eyes, was they same small boy who had carried his axe through the crowd to him earlier. With a smile, the figure reached inside his shirt. From within he brought out a small talisman, still fastened around his neck on a rawhide thong. The smile he wore began to break. Literally. Deep cracks spread from the corners of his mouth and raced across the skin in his face. It splintered down the rest of his body, until a spider web of fine lines covered every inch of his form. Sucking in a deep breath, Ashur watched transfixed as the boy held it in his lungs momentarily. As he finally exhaled, the illusion he wore shattered.

Even though he had never seen one, Ashur was sure that was what it must have been. How else could he explain to himself the large man now standing where the boy had been. Almost as tall as himself, head shaved bald and decorated from nose to neck with an intricate pattern of what looked like flames, he stepped forward. Taking their cue from him, the others had followed suit and let their own glamour's fall. Men, women. Old, young. All bald, all with the same flames adorning their skulls. All grinning.

Mounting the steps up to where he stood, Ashur watched the man approach slowly. He walked with his head up, possessing far more confidence than a man who had stood amongst what had just happened should have possibly possessed. Why wasn't he afraid? Reaching the top, Ashur was surprised when the man looked past the woman stood next to him, and addressed him instead. A look of mild annoyance sweep across her face for a brief moment, but she remained silent. Actions truly did speak more than words in this case.

"We keep our word. Your sister will be released, unharmed." A look of disdain crosses his face, and the lines crossing his brow as he frowned added years to his appearance. "I apologise for the vulgarity of our actions, but our hand was and we had little time to act. If we had been allowed more, perhaps we could have approached you directly instead. No matter." Seeming done with Ashur for the time being, the figure turned and addressed the woman in turn now.

"Forgive us. We should have been more vigilant. My name is Mashathar Akarim, and I have been waiting a very, very long time to meet you. As have we all. " He dipped into a flourished bow as he finished, not rising until she gestured to him to continue. "How may we address you in this cycle?"

Cayla turned her gaze to Mashathar. "I would prefer Mistress. But I owe you a boon for my freedom, and a second for my life. So you may call me Cayla."

"Cayla." Mashathar repeated the word back to her softly. "Cayla." He spoke it with reverence this time. "A strong name. Fitting." He turned to the crowd. "Our a mistress has returned to us. Reborn amidst fire, anointed in blood as we have all been." Spreading his arms to them, he shouted her name, and they echoed it back to him a hundred fold. Cayla. Cayla. Cayla. It became a chant, continuing until Mashathar lowered his arms slowly down. Their voices dropped along with his limbs until silence covered the crown again, as they waited for her to speak once more.

Instead, she turned to Ashur and spoke to him. "I owe you a boon also. Under duress perhaps, but you still didn't kill me. You have your sisters life returned, but I grant you yours also. You may leave here freely, and I will instruct them tell you where she is being held. They will not harm you if I ask it."

"That's not fair." Ashur didn't want to provoke her, her outburst earlier had demonstrated very clearly that he wanted to remain on her good side, but he knew when someone was trying to play him for a fool. "You know I can't walk away from this. I'll be killed to keep this quiet. They'll think I conspired to make this happen. Me, my sisters. My parents. I've traded our lives for yours, haven't I?" He slumped down to sit on the block where her neck had rested, deep in thought. Gently nudging at the wicker basket next to it with the toe of his boot, she left him to his thoughts.

Every word he had spoken was true. It did indeed seem fate was weaving an intricate pattern today, one that she did not yet fully understand yet. But she was determined to slowly pick the threads apart until she did. She had expected to die, had come to accept the release the axe would have brought her, but she was faced with this instead. Mashathar had spoken to her in her dreams and whispered messages of hope and rescue, but she had dismissed them as figments of her own imagination. Only seeing him here, now, did she realise that her dreams has spoken the truth. Prophecy, or foresight. A rare gift indeed either way if it was, but she couldn't be sure if it was an isolated happenstance. Her dreams had manifest themselves before, but never like this. Did events unfold because she dreamt of them, or had she simply dreamed of them because they would happen? The unknowing frustrated her either way.

Ashur had fallen silent. Her own silence seemed to be troubling him, so she broke it. "Either way, we must leave. So I offer you this choice. Stay, and accept the fate you know is coming. Or come with us, and I will see you back to your family. Even if it is far from here, perhaps far from now. You have my word on this, and I will not break it. But you must choose. Quickly."

"You know that's no true choice. " He made no attempt to hide the contempt in his voice. "But it seems our roles have switched somewhat, haven't they."

"I take no pleasure in it. Please believe me. I'm sure I know what you must think of me, what you have been told. Most of it is probably true, but I'm not the monster I have been portrait to be. Come with us, and give me the chance to prove it to you." She offered her hand out to him. Reaching up to grasp her delicate looking fingers, Ashur found himself slightly surprised to feel rough calluses gracing her palms. So the Witch knows what a hard days work feels like does she.

Cayla pulled him to his feet with a heave, and found herself standing far closer to him than she had anticipated. His tightly muscled shoulders reached equal with her head. Even without his boots on, Ashur stood a good foot taller than she did. He could almost be taken for handsome she mused, even if his ugliness of his job and the fact he smelt like he hadn't washed for a week diminished the attraction somewhat.

"Mistress, we should leave. Now." They'll be hear soon, and what little protection we could offer you is now spent."

"Mashathar speaks the unfortunate truth. And as loathe as I am to admit it, my own power is greatly diminished too." More that she cared to admit aloud, buying her freedom the way she had left her at the point of exhaustion. The display had cost more than just the price of the blood that had been shed. She whispered something to Mashathar too quite for Ashur to hear. He walked back into the crowd and began to gather then around himself. "Follow me. " she told him, "and leave that, thing, here." Ashur dropped the collar she had been wearing, and in doing so realised that his other hand he still held hers tightly. She guided him down amongst the gathered crowd, making her way to the centre of the half scrambled circle they seemed to have made. The circle closed around them, and Mashathar joined them in the centre.

"Brothers. Sisters. Hear me." He paused, waiting until he had the attention of each and every one of them. "We have struck a blow here today. We have sent a message that will be heard for years to come, and remembered for generations more. Magic lives. It has returned to us, and we will cower no more. But we have need of your strength once more today. I offer each of you this choice, and think on it well before you decide. If you would live free, spill your blood once again. Come with us on the journey we now begin. But if would leave, go with our love, and know you shall be missed." He looked to Cayla, the final words should be hers he thought.

She looked around the circle slowly. So many strange faces, but the eyes of each fixed in her own. "Choose."

Not a single soul walked away. In turn, each and every one stepped forward, tightening the circle around her instead. All of them spilt their blood onto the ground for her, adding to the power already contained there. It streaked along the floor, each drop slithering towards the next, growing in size as it moved. Whirling around the outside of the circle it continued to grow until it reached back over onto itself, creating a dome of blood dark enough to block the light from the sun. A faint hum could be heard, undulating in time to the steady beat of Cayla's pulse. Beads of sweat had broken out on her brow from the effort of what she was trying to do. As she attempted to slow her breathing, and her racing heart in turn, the sound of the pulsing began to slow too. It was done.

She allowed the dome to dissipate, and was relieved to find that what she'd attempted had worked. The city streets that had surrounded them were gone. In their place stood charred timbers and hard packed earthen floors littered with scorch marks. Letting the last of the power she was holding escape, she collapsed as exhaustion finally overcame her. They were safe for now, and she could rest.