https://cfc.polyvoreimg.com/cgi/img-set/.sig/FLrRsOHCk8O5tPY0pzS2kg/cid/226499764/id/wl-msc5_5xGuZSWR2hAMMQ/size/c600x855.jpg
There was a certain smell to the earth after a day and a night of battle. The early morning dew knew it, the carrion fowl knew it, even the wind knew it as it refused to blow away the metallic stench of blood and the sickly sweet scent of decay. There were no crickets or insects of any kind buzzing around; which struck Isuelt as odd. Where were the flies" Surely not even the damp mist of the morning could keep them from their prizes" Isuelt remembered well where she was; she had not been back here for a long while, but it felt as if she left this field only yesterday. Slowly, she stood up from her kneel (did she remember kneeling") and felt the blades in her hands, their hilts sticky with blood. She didn't know if it was hers or someone else's; at this point it didn't really matter. Blinking, Isuelt scanned what was before her: in the growing fog, she could see the mostly flat meadow that had cradled the morose acts of war and now offered up darkened masses, bodies, along the ground. They were strewn about in whatever manner had befallen them. She counted silently: three"five"ten'twenty' The scenery went on until she could not see through the mist and the hills beyond.
She knew that her husband was one of those bumps and the Scathachian was overwhelmed at that moment to find him, not let him ripen and rot for the crows to feast upon. She kept her wits as closely as she could as she floundered from her stance to hunt among the dead, some nearly impossible to recognize, some bloated beyond possibility. At times nearly stumbling, hovering from body to body; with each unnamable corpse her heart beat faster. Where was he" Her breath began to come in ragged scraps, her own body ached everywhere, now and then a piercing pain in her shoulder and back: injuries sure to fester if she did not take care. He was here somewhere, she knew it. She remembered the death stroke as it fell from General Gothicus" blade; cutting down her husband in a single stroke. She watched him crumble as the General sneered and moved effortlessly on to his next victim. She had held him as he bled and died in her arms without being able to say a word. Isuelt looked down at the blades in her hands, their leather wrapped grips nearly stuck to her fingers. It was his blood; she was covered in it. How she knew it was his was beyond her, but instinct had taken over.
The mist now was too thick to know how much of the field she had covered looking for her husband, yet she knew she was far from where she started. Tears stung her eyes as if the smoke of funeral pyres had already begun. "Merry?" She screamed into the misty distance. "MERRY!" Her voice echoed as if she were in a marble hall, bouncing off of every surface and ringing in her own ears. When her own breathless screeches passed into silence there was nothing. No sound whatsoever, barely the sound of her own heartbeat. She could not remember a time when she felt so alone"well, save for one other time.
"Don't look for me here." After what seemed an eternity, the warmth of those words in a tone she had not heard in ages melted her fear in an instant. Isuelt turned to look upon the face of her husband; his shoulder-length dark hair falling to the side of his bearded face, though his dark eyes looked unusually light. Merry shook his head lightly, his voice becoming as gentle as the rain, "Don't."
Isuelt's breath caught in her throat as she opened her mouth in awe. She admitted only to herself that there were days when she couldn't remember his face, the curve of his jaw, the glint in his eye, the sound of his laughter. But here he was, as if he had never left her decades ago, never died on the sword of General Gothicus. She could barely speak but to push out a single breath that sounded much like the sound of his name.
Merry lifted his fingers to her jaw and tipped her chin, "It's been a few years, hasn't it, Ch're?" The light accent of the gypsy rogue sounded in her ears and strangely it was as if not a single day had gone by since they'd talked. The blades fell from Isuelt's hands and she collapsed into her husband, clinging to him as if she were hanging from a cliff's edge.
And just like that everything fell away. The pain in her body, the stench of decay, the darkness of the mists, the heaviness in her heart. Isuelt wanted to sob against him, but she couldn't. She felt as if all of the years of self-deprecation, self-hatred, bitterness and virulence had never happened. For an instant, reality was suspended and she was here in her husband's arms far away from any threat or problem. And that instant, mercifully, lasted longer than she expected.
"Iz?" Merry moved his face from hers and brushed some of the hair from her eyes. "I'm here for a reason. You know that don't you?"
Isuelt looked up at him and it was as if he was speaking directly into her body: she not only heard his words, but she felt them. "Yes?" She could not take her eyes off of him.
"Something's coming for you." His velvet voice was a whisper before he kissed her gently. His lips moved against hers as he spoke again at an impossibly near-silent level, "I need you to pay attention, mon "pine."
Isuelt blinked, hearing his nickname for her. Thorn. Thorn in his side, piercing personality, ready to draw blood at any given moment"but fragile. He was the first person to ever see that. At first she was more taken aback by hearing her nickname again for the first time in over twenty years. Slowly though, his warning sunk in. "Coming for me?"
"Yes, Ch're. Your enemies have seen each other. They see what you do not. They know what you cannot. They are joining. And you, Iz honey, you are standing in the middle of a field waiting for them to mow you down." He kissed her once more and she felt the warmth of his lips on hers for a second more before he was gone.
Everything was gone.
And there she was, standing in the middle of a field. On the horizon was the oddest looking storm. Isuelt could see lightning, but it was green. And the swirling clouds were red. She could hear her name being whispered, but it was no longer the honeyed tones of her husband. This voice was like claws on glass, like pin pricks against her skin. The storm was moving closer, or was the horizon getting closer" She began to step backwards, but she tripped over something. Scrambling to get up, Isuelt fumbled on Merry's bloodied corpse; his chest nearly cleaved open from the General's strike, his pale face stuck in a warped expression of horror. Clawing the dirt to get to her feet, she let out a strangled cry. Why she couldn't scream with anymore fervor eluded her at the moment. The thunder rumbled again and her dark eyes looked to the horizon, though the storm was no longer there. It was just above her now. The clouds were pulsing with heat, with their sickening sanguine color. The shock of electricity lit up with a repulsive shade of gangrenous green. And was that".laughter" Isuelt strained to hear beyond the storm. Was someone laughing" Her pulse echoed loudly in her ears as the shrieks of lightning scratching at the sky. The laughter began again and built into a crescendo of thunder that had her gasping for air as she sat upright in her bed, clutching at her chest, damp sheets clinging to her sweating bare skin.
