[b]Selene Silverblood - The Road to Nubina[/b]

Selene leaned forward and soothed Nerolim, her white mare. It was an unconscious action, and she knew she was trying to soothe herself. Nerolim stood stock still with only her tail whisking. The horse needed no words of comfort. Selene, on the other hand...

Long before the gagging scent of the Undead assaulted her nostrils, long before her eyes widened at the sight before her, her ears had told her something was horribly wrong. At first, it was a murmur, as of angry bees. The incessant chatter among the men had stopped abruptly as people became aware of the low murmur. Soldiers had looked at one another askance, shuffling their feet. The Captain of her retinue started staying close to her, as if the old man hoped to protect his liege lady from [i]sound[/i]!

Then the murmur rose. Snatches of fell words blew in the wind. "[i]Kar mirun morid... Morid[/i]" The voices chilled her to the bone. Morid. That was a word in High Elven. Selene was sure it meant death. Not death in the peaceful end-of-life sense. But death in the sense of eternal dying. [i]"Kar mirun morid."[/i]

And as they crested a rise, so did the voices. Her eyes widened as she saw rows and rows of flailing limbs and grotesque faces. A thousand wailing and thrashing corpses singing their eternal dirge.[i] "Kar mirun morid. Al tumun morid. Kar mirun morid. Al tumun morid,"[/i] it went, engulfing all other sound. It wasn't loud, but it was a permeating sound. It made her feel dirty.

"Kartoll's balls!" swore Daram, her Captain of the Guard. He was shocked enough to forget his language in her presence. "What is-" It was obvious to anyone what it was. "How are we gonna get through that?"

Before Selene could reply, others were already taking the initiative. A stately-looking elf clad - albeit thinly - in what appeared to be the very grass and barks, was doing something to the pikes. As Selene watched, the pikes started falling, the corpses falling on them and unable to get up with the weight of the pike through them. [i]Not bad[/i], thought Selene.

"Follow me, Captain," she told Daram as she heeled Nerolim towards the elf. "And make sure the men are ready for any Undead who do manage to get up and come at us." She stopped next to the elf and her wild army and dismounted.

The elf was concentrating hard on using her magic. Selene just nodded to her and turned to the mass of pikes. She could see the elf was doing something to the soil, loosening them. Smiling to herself, she opened herself to the spirit of Kartoll.

Kartoll's spirit is like a torrential downpour. A river in full flood. From a very early age, Selene was taught - not to control this power but to surrender to it. Only by surrendering to Kartoll could one channel his power. She felt a divine rain fall on her, felt herself drenched by it.

She could clearly sense the water hidden under the soil. She willed it to overflow. She coaxed it to saturate large tracts of soil the pikes were impaled upon. The sand turned to mud and dirt and started forming puddles. Combined with the elf's work, the process speeded up the felling of the pikes. Her retinue were close by, taking on the occasional corpse that managed to get up.

"Let's see if we can forge a path through, Captain," Selene said thinly as she concentrated on the pikes. Should any Undead break through her men and come at her, her ice spikes should be enough to rip them apart.

"M'lady, a path through that mess of fuckin' Undead? It would be worse than marching through a canyon with an ambush on all sides."

"Then we must just hope to spread out, Captain. Slowly. If we can get these wild men to help you, we can make the process faster."