Servants of the Storm
an excerpt

Halyn shuddered, and Demitri's words came back to him abruptly. "A time may come when I must do something that may seem...untoward to your Goddess and to you. Know, however, that I do this only because it is necessary."

Oh gods.

Halyn's eyes tore themselves from the Mankari hunter, and turned for the battlefield again. Demitri had stopped her headlong charge, and had brought herself into the center of the just-then battlefield. Her horse's flanks heaved, breath escaping it in streams of steam, the beast's eyes seeming to glow. Demitri herself sat tall in the saddle, her back ramrod straight. She brought a raised fist into the air, her arm starting to glow with an eldrich green light, which gathered in her hand like a beacon, only to flow off her fingertips as she opened her hand. Threads of power floated on the air, laying themselves across the battlefield, glowing more brightly where they fell across the fallen. Halyn's heart twisted then, and he ached; what was he allowing to happen?

A touch of warmth caressed the scarred side of his face, and he felt himself relaxing. An outraged cry went up among one of his own units, and Halyn's face snapped toward the sound when he saw several of his cavalry horses start shifting restlessly. "HOLD YOUR GROUND!" he shouted. "NO ONE MOVES UNTIL I GIVE THE ORDER!"

Another murmur through the crowd now, this one disapproving, and Halyn felt that faint nausea growing stronger. And again, he felt the gentle touch of warmth on his face, like a whisper of heaven in all the cold rain, and again, he felt himself calming. What must be done, he suddenly felt, needed to be done. And so he watched, a helpless bystander, as this Dark Elven woman, this female who had not practiced her craft (at least, not legally) since she'd been cast out of Schyenth, slowly wove a magic spell, laying down her net of dark marionette strings. There were a few moments of silence, stillness, before all the bodies that net had touched began to move.

They rose, one after another after another, the bodies of friend and foe alike, and formed into silent ranks. And then Demitri stood at their head, the dark general of this evil army. When her lips parted to speak, however, it wasn't Demitri's voice that Halyn heard, but the voice of something other.

"Thou art not welcome here!" The voice boomed, and Demitri almost seemed to grow in the saddle, towering over the Serpent army. "Leave this place, hallowed of mine Sister. Or I will set the powers of the heavens and the hells upon you, and slaughter you to a man."

Another restless sound from Halyn's men, and then something took hold of him, and without quite realizing that he had, or understand why he was doing this thing, he touched his heel to Haleakala's flank, and she sprang forward, heralded by another flash of lightning. Yolarin cried out in alarm, but Rhaelund reached back, landing a hand heavily on the lad's shoulder. "Don't follow him, Lad," he said, his tone grim. "We have our orders."

"But...but Rhael..."

"I know...but something's happening here...watch it, and remember it. Because I get the feeling it's going be legend after we're dead."

Haleakala sprang nimbly down the hill, racing over the ground with surefooted speed until the horse came to stop beside Demitri's. Halyn was aware of this, and yet not, there and somehow an observer. He drew his sword, holding it aloft, vaguely aware the blade was glowing with a kind of white fire, and that he could actually see from both eyes, his vision sharp and clear. His own lips parted, and the voice that issued from them was male and female, and yet neither. "Thou art in holy land!" he cried. "Thou hast brought war and ruin to mine people. I am not without mercy. Leave, now, and you may leave in peace. Persist, and I will set the heavens and hells on you."

It wasn't his voice, and yet it was, and suddenly, Halyn understood. The goddesses were, for reasons he likely would never know, standing together, trying to stop this foolish attack on Solara. And they were both threatening to unleash their armies on the assembled!

He expected the others to quake with fear, or perhaps even run. But they did neither. Fools, was all Halyn thought, and then all hell broke loose.