Someone Else's Kingdom, BOOK II - Scene LXXXI

An arrow ripped through Eartaria's heart. The woodland his muddy grave. As the archers, and horse, and swordsmen, and artillery - supplemented and aggrandised by forces from the south - swept through the forest resistance. The sound and smoke, the din of swords and thunder of hooves, hellish and lurid in war.

Drua Maleeva followed by ship across the sea, to take up the reins of direct command - though little instruction was needed. Her coming presence giving only added conviction to the intent. Her travel north, like the galloping hordes advancing before her, a howling wind cutting north across the mountains. A natural force; a king's proclamation of war. A blunt stone crushing entire peoples underfoot. Celalah ran, a stray mother-less child underarm, as he tried to find refuge in the forest darkness. Allakat had fallen long ago, back when at least some hope remained that it was worth the fight: a horseman's sword ripping through his thin frame as he readied another round of fire. The black powder, in the end, only helpful in quickening the cruelty.

The whole Northern Kingdom was fully under submission, from its southern border to the swampy north. Once Woods a sun-less, blackened forest - no longer a home, nor a heartland. The surviving half-tails scattered to the wind, like so many leaves. Hiding, that they might live or leave at some future time. Though as Celalah ran his mind could not think beyond the moment. All he could do was keep running.

Meanwhile, in the cloudy east, King Kaspria watched out across the turbulent sea, from his flooded realm. His high castle walls not high enough to give him vision across the waves, to the bloody Maiden Land fields and seas. Though in his mind he envisioned the slaughter, just as he knew that with King Brijsk slaughtered also, it would be heavy in the north as well. He'd never seen Once Woods with his own eyes, but he could easily imagine the scenes of carnage. As a heavy rain began to fall a conception appeared to him. He remembered Liofia, and the long sweeping tail that swept out from her pretty, daughterly form. The tail that she herself, and her long late mother, had refused to have removed. As the persecution of the half-tails presented itself in his vision, a deep dash of concern appeared for his wild princess, but he pushed it quickly back into the undergrowth. He focused out at the grey-black sky with penetration - the silvery clouds just about visible on the prospect. He then headed down to inquire of the latest news from the frontline, oblivious to the rain that drenched him.