A Larger Game

JP with Cindy, Largehobbit and Winteroak

Islana was on the floor. Her eyes flung open but she could not move, she was drifting in and out of consciousness, still under the influence of the stone and the spirit of the Seer that seemed to be reaching out to her.

She looked up to she the leader of the council parrying the assassin's knife with his staff.

Oshar stumbled back, his eyes growing wide as the Ascendant blocked his killing blow. He steadied himself and turned toward Tamazzalt with a questioning look. Was this some sort of test?

Her muddled mess of a mind, could only make out that the Ascendant had somehow stopped the assailant.

The grips of the visions overtook more of her mind. As her consciousness slipped back into history.

The assassin hesitated for a moment more before swinging back toward Islana with a growl of anger. His blade slicing toward her exposed throat.

And again Tamazzalt whirled his staff and batted away the arm swinging the blade.
A gust of wind slammed into the Herald like am invisible giant fist slamming him away.

"You have failed Herald." He simply said.

Oshar flew backward, his feet taken from beneath him by the force of the Ascendants power. He slammed bodily into the nearby wall, his blade clattering to the ground. He bounced painfully against the stone and then winded he plummeted to the floor barely catching himself and rolling toward his blade. He had to think. He did not understand. How had he failed?

He reached to snatch up his blade as he kept his eyes trained on Tamazzalt. "What is the meaning of this betrayal?" he asked as he considered his best course of action.

"She is in the grips of the final Trial." He said moving towards the herald holding his staff to the side as if he did not consider the man a threat at all. "You are too late. She will not die today. That time has passed." He said looking at the red glowing stone.

"Although your souls will have a part to play in what is to come."

"No." Oshar denied the mans words with every fibre of his being.

"No! This can not be. She is a heathen. A filthy out lander! She is impure." With a cry of pure rage Oshar hurled his dagger at the Ascendant while at the same time launching himself toward Islana. He needed no weapon to kill this foreign witch!

A wave of Tamazzalt hand shifted the air in front of him enough so that the dagger would move from hitting him in the centre of his chest to slicing through his left shoulder.

He grunted in pain as the steel cut his flesh. He would do well to carry wounds from this encounter.

Oshar did not see the blood he had drawn as all of his focus was on Islana now. He raced for her arms outstretched ready to snap her neck if he could. Spittle flew from his open mouth as he released a scream of determination.

He would not be denied this prize!

A wall of water slammed down into his moving figure sending him crashing into the stone floor. All air left his lungs as he felt the foot of the Ascendant pressing down on his back and the tip of his staff at the base of his skull.

"You have done what you could. But there is a larger game afoot, Herald." He said raising the staff with both hands...

"No I..." the assassin managed before the staff came down with a crushing blow. Oshar tried to say more but the words would not come. He could not move his limbs he could not move at all. He felt like he was drowning as his throat filled with thick liquid. His eyes flickered briefly up to Islana, twin daggers of hatred. Then his vision began to dim, the water on the ground around him staining red with his blood as it seeped ever outward. It reminded him of the colour of fresh bloomed roses. A vast garden of blossoms drifting outward into infinity... into darkness.