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From: Shalon Wood <dstar@pele.cx>
Subject: {ASSM} New Age Dawning 1 (Ff rom fantasy viol blood)
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Standard disclaimers apply; this story may or may not contain, in any
given part, graphic depictions of lesbianism, homosexuality, group sex,
bdsm, underage (teen) sex, magic, occultism, violence, and biting 
sarcasm.  If you're underage, or if for any other reason it's illegal 
for you to read this, or you're disturbed by the content, please don't 
read it.

Archived at http://pandora.pele.cx, and we've got a web-forum at
http://playground.pele.cx/forums as well, for discussion of both
Pandora and our other stories. 

Comments *greatly* appreciated.

Enjoy,

Velvet
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It was a good time to be a mercenary, if you didn't mind the odds. Of
course, there were always some who had a way of evening the odds, of
decreasing their own, personal chance of becoming one of the thousands that
were dying in the current spate of Mage Wars. Adara was one such warrior.

You wouldn't know it just from looking at her, though. She seemed just
another human fighter... tall, short black hair, brown eyes. She wore dull
black leather armor, and the sword at her side was unremarkable, as was the
scarred black oak staff she carried. There was nothing about her appearance
that set her apart from any other mercenary, but her performance... that
was something else entirely. 

No one knew how she became as good as she was. She didn't socialize, rarely
even spoke. It was easy to dismiss her as just another muscle-bound brute.
Easy, but not wise. Those expressionless eyes took in everything and gave
away nothing. Those who pried, she ignored. Those who challenged, she
defeated with no apparent effort. She listened to the campfire gossip,
absorbing it as she did any information, but while panic gripped the world,
she remained calm. The Mages' magic might be faltering, but she knew that
hers was not. And if the gods were, indeed, dead, it made little difference
to her... she'd never thought it wise to count on the favor of gods. Your
own hands, your own strength -- _those_ are what a warrior can depend on,
not the capricious whim of deity. 

The panic and the wars that came in its wake were quite a nice source of
profit, though, she had to admit. Of course, with the rate at which Mage
towers were falling as their masters went insane, there might soon be none
left to fight for. It didn't really worry her -- in her experience,
someone, somewhere, always needed a killer. She wouldn't starve, come what
may.

She wasn't fond, however, of her current employer. He paid quite well,
though, as he had trouble finding reliable guards. Even mercenaries don't
like working side by side with zombies and vampires, and Debrios Varelli
was a necromancer, a powerful one. He was engaged in a war against two
neighboring mages at the moment, and from Adara's perspective, he seemed to
be the one most likely to emerge victorious. He was, by far, the most
powerful... though his two opponents were not powers to dismiss... and, at
the moment, seemed to be the least affected by the madness that was
spreading through the Mages of the land. These were important things to
consider when choosing one's employer.

Adara rose quickly through the ranks of his living army to become his most
trusted personal guard. His admiration of her skills was plain, but she'd
recently began to have the impression that he was studying her more than
was healthy. She knew he knew she wasn't, truly, human, and that was always
dangerous. Varelli was likely having thoughts about raising an army of
creatures like her, but as of yet was not intrigued with the idea enough to
risk losing her as his guard. Still, had the tower not been under siege for
the past several days, she would probably have found the opportunity to
leave, just to be on the safe side.

It had been besieged, however, and while it didn't seem likely to fall,
Varelli hadn't been able to drive the attackers away, either. He did have a
plan, though. That was obvious by his attitude, and by the amount of time
he spent in his private dungeons, where he usually had several potential
tools awaiting transformation. Usually soldiers who'd been convicted of
treason, or thieves he'd caught, or other such criminals, suitable for
ghouls and zombies and the occasional vampire. But right at that moment,
unknown to Adara and most of the rest of the tower, he had a very special
treasure.

Adara's first knowledge of the girl came when the mage's servants fetched
her to the ritual room. She was a pretty little thing, young and innocent
looking in her white robe, with her dark curls long and loose around her.
She was terrified by her zombie guards, crying and struggling uselessly. 

Adara's hand tightened on her staff, though her expression didn't flicker.
Quickly, she considered the odds and reached the sad conclusion that there
was nothing she could do to save the girl. The wizard was just too
powerful. He opened the door just as Adara silently promised that some
vengeance would be forthcoming, if there were any way she could manage it.
 
The mage froze the girl with a word, though her eyes remained aware and
fearful. He smiled. "Good. Perfect. She's worth every grain of gold that I
paid for her. A beautiful young virgin. Exactly what the spell calls for."
He licked his lips, exposing sharp fangs. "Delicious." Adara forced herself
to stay still, to not betray her emotions... there was nothing she could do
for the girl. She knew that. Dying in the attempt would change nothing. The
mage picked the girl up easily under one arm, her limp body draped over his
hip, and motioned the zombie guards away with the other hand before turning
to Adara. "This is the most important work I've ever done, Adara. If it is
interrupted in any way, the tower may well fall, and the girl will be
simply wasted, dead. I'll never find so perfect a candidate again. I _must
not_ be interrupted, understand?" he asked, speaking slowly and clearly,
having made the mistake of so many others in assuming her silence was due
to lack of intelligence. "Whatever happens, I must complete this spell.
Guard me well in this, and I will see you rewarded."

Slowly, anger and disgust seething in her gut, she nodded, and he turned
and carried his victim into the chamber.

Standing outside the door, Adara could hear when he released the paralysis
spell and the girl started screaming. She closed her eyes. He was dead if
ever she had the chance.

The sound of the wizard's chanting rose above the screams even as they
faded into helpless sobs and pitiful begging. Then, the chanting broke off,
and there was a sound of tearing cloth and the girl screamed again,
piercingly. The scream was cut off in the middle with an obscene gurgling
noise, then all was quiet for a few moments until the chanting began again,
sounding somewhat shaky. It broke off abruptly at the sound of snapping
chains.

The mage changed his chant in mid word, the new one full of commanding
syllables. There was a crash from the work-room, and he gasped loudly.
"Stop! Stop, my creature, and kneel to your Master!" His words were edged
with panic, and girlish laughter was his only answer, followed by more
chaos from within... glass breaking, metal crashing.

Adara opened the door and slipped inside, calm eyes examining the
situation. The mage was on his back on the floor. The girl, naked and
covered in blood, was atop him, kneeling on his hips. His mouth was covered
in blood, as if he'd fed from her, but no wound was visible on her naked
form, just the blood. He was frantically trying to keep her away from his
throat while attempting to shout out the words of a containment spell, but
she appeared to be stronger than him, and he couldn't dislodge her. Feeling
more cheerful than she has in quite some time, Adara stalked over, looking
down at him.

His eyes were wide and terrified. "Stop her! Kill her!" The girl didn't
seem to notice her at all, too intent on her task for anything else. As
Adara watched, she managed to tear one of her small hands from his.
Impressive. She'd seen him bend steel bars with his bare hands. 

Adara knelt down and rested one hand gently on his forehead. "No," she
said, quietly and with a great deal of satisfaction, and he screamed again
as her touch drained the strength from his body.

His hands fell away, freeing the child to do what she would. She hissed
triumphantly and launched herself at his throat, tearing it open with her
teeth even as her hand plunged into his chest, up between his ribs,
digging, then ripping the heart from his chest. It beat in her hand...
once, twice, three times, and then was still as the sorcerer's life faded
to nothingness. 

The tower began to tremble as the girl savaged the corpse, sucking
frantically at the blood that no longer pumped. She clenched the forgotten
heart in her hand, crushing it to a mere pulp.

Adara regarded her thoughtfully. "We should leave."

The girl looked up, eyes wild and savage and flickering with hot gold
light. She snarled at Adara, then something changed, and a look of
confusion crossed her face. She looked down at the shredded corpse beneath
her, then at her own hand, and dropped the unrecognizable remains of the
man's heart. "What... " she began, as the tower shook again, bits of dust
drifting down from the ceiling.

Her confusion was understandable, but the tower seemed unwilling to wait
for her to recover. It creaked and groaned alarmingly as she stared at
Adara in horror. "What's happening? I... I was dead... "

"Don't know," Adara said, "But the tower's going to collapse. Come on."

"Collapse? Oh! Right." The girl struggled free of the gory mess beneath
her. "Where?"

Adara quickly scooped up anything that looked valuable into a handy altar
cloth. There was a large assortment of expensive looking, magically glowing
knives and swords, as well as small table with several items of magical
jewelry on it. She wrapped it up, tying the cloth into a crude bag. "Out
the window. Faster."

The girl looked out the window, then back at Adara, terrified. "We're
hundreds of feet up!"

She nodded. "Climb down."

"I _can't_!"

"Why?"

"It's a sheer stone wall," the girl protested. "You can't climb down it!"

Adara grinned, and tossed the girl an iron candlestick. "Bend it."

"This is solid iron, I can't bend it."

"Try," the woman insisted.

The girl looked at her like she was crazy, but tried, just to humor her,
and her eyes went wide when the metal bent easily in her hands. "Ah. Um."
She swallowed hard. "Ah. Right. But there's still nothing to hold on to."

Adara cocked her head, considering, then said, "Try this." She reached out,
digging her fingers easily into the stone wall, and the girl's eyes got
even wider. Hesitantly, she reached out. Her fingers, too sank into the
wall, but she wasn't as hard to damage as Adara. Blood welled out around
them, and when she pulled her hand out, her fingertips were shredded. She
clenched her jaw and just shook her head.

Adara frowned, looking at the blood, then motioned to her back. "Hold on to
me."

The tower shook again, hard, and there was a loud booming sound from
somewhere far below. The girl jumped, the nodded fearfully and approached
Adara, wrapping her arms around her shoulders. Adara handed up the
makeshift sack. "Hold this." She walked over to the window. The girl held
the sack in her injured hand, her uninjured one having a death-grip on
Adara's shoulder. Her breathing sped up as they approached the window, and
she buried her face in Adara's back. "Oh _gods_!" she moaned, shuddering.

"Don't worry," Adara said.

"I'm n...not worried," the girl stammered, and Adara smiled at the blatant
lie as she grabbed the iron bars and tore them from the window. She used
one of the bars to remove the glass from the window, then climbed carefully
out and started down the side. The girl kept her face hidden, her tight
grip almost painful. 

It was a looooong way down, and the tower swayed and trembled beneath them.
Largish chunks were falling past by the time they were almost down. The
besieging armies had drawn back, though... way back, as purple, red, and
black lightening flickered around the top of the tower. The mage's undead
army lay around the tower, just so many corpses without his power to
animate them.The ground trembled beneath Adara's feet as she left the wall,
and she took off running, still holding the girl on her back.

The girl gasped, holding even tighter, and called out, "Where are we
going?"

"Away from the tower."

"Oh. Good." She held tight in silence until, when they were about a mile
away, there was a loud crash, and a shock-wave that knocked them to the
ground as the wizard's tower exploded violently behind them.

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If you like this, you might want to take a look at Strange Love, an
e-zine of sf/fantasy/paranormal erotica. The first issue is on sale
now for $2 at:

http://strangelove.pele.cx

Take a look!

-- 
Pursuant to the Berne Convention, this work is copyright with all rights
reserved by its author unless explicitly indicated.
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