(Sorry, i haven't had internet for the last month as i'v been traveling around. Could someone give me an update?)

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Made by Lembas

Kendath nodded curtly and gave Merrin's midsection a last cursory glance, to make certain the tourniquet wasn't cutting off her circulation. She looked healthy enough, though he supposed her dropping cold would provide contrary evidence.

Pundy's arrival, however, jerked him off that slightly troubling line of thought. "See that?" the mariner grunted, pointing farther inland. Kendath followed the finger and squinted into the mist. Above the chines of trees, where the first hints of greenery were snaking their way up the cinder cone, he thought he detected a faint nuance in the haze. A tendril of darker gray, almost black... no, more than a tendril, even... Fire - no puny campfire either. And here he was, thinking the place was no-man's-land...

Some strange island.

"Survivors, you think?" Pundy asked, pitching his voice low as though afraid of eavesdroppers. One hand rested on Kiril's head while the other ventured near his cutlass. "... or something less friendly?"

"'Enemy until proven otherwise,'" replied Kendath, quoting a Meiltha adage that'd never failed him before. He glanced at wide-eyed Kiril, then at Merrin, who looked liable to drop cold after all. "I'll reconnoiter. If I'm not back in an hour, don't come after me. The girl needs you," he added harshly, when Pundy opened his mouth to protest. "Watch them both." No need to explicate "both." He picked up his tattered cloak and started off at a sprint towards the trees.

The divine healing had done its work well. He ran hard and fast, weaving through the skeletal trees, vaulting over fallen logs and pits of what looked like soggy clumps of weeds - life that had dared to poke through the muck, only to suffocate in the damp silence. And what a silence it was, oppressive, shattered by nothing - not wind in the treetops, not cries of wild animals or hum of insects. The beach had boasted crashing breakers. Here, there was nothing but his own panting and the thump of his boots against intermittent patches of harder ground. Visibility was limited, forcing him to constantly stop and relocate the column of smoke drifting languidly into the gray.

As he neared, he stopped and dropped low, warily straining his ears. Flames crackling. No other giveaways. Whoever it was was well-versed in stealth or... waiting for him? His quarry couldn't be that numerous, or he would have heard something. Didn't this make the bonfire a bit superfluous? Could it be another survivor, perhaps signaling...?

One way to find out. An advantage of the mist was that it provided cover, shadowing him and muting his footfalls. The assassin was in his element. He crept around and behind the flashes of vermilion marking the bonfire. A figure was sitting, composed, beside the flames. The figure's back was facing him, and he couldn't see well enough to discern through the smoke... He darted closer, ducking within a copse of withered saplings for cover. He peered through the branches, caught a glimpse of dirtied robes that may have once seen whiter days...

Garthag. He should have known.

What was the mage playing at? Signaling, most likely. He appeared hospitable as never, either meditating or awaiting his next cretinous victim. Kendath wasn't sure what to do, how to approach. Sneak up and dagger to the throat was his custom, but somehow he doubted Garthag would take that graciously. What else, then? Walk up, say hello, comment about the weather and sea dragons and strange islands and even stranger music...

Music?

It sounded like a harp or perhaps a lyre. It thrummed through the monotony with radiant lucidity, like a light from the gods. It was the loveliest sound Kendath had ever heard. Subconsciously, abandoning Garthag and all pragmatism, he rose to his feet and, swaying slightly, moved towards the inviting euphony. The mist parted, and before him stood a winged woman, clad in filmy robes and beautiful beyond imagination.

The sight of the siren was the last thing he recalled before his world went black.

[it'd be nice if Garthag did the same. not sure about Merrin. Anduril, it's a bit complicated.]

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It had been far more than an hour when Merrin awoke abruptly from a fitful doze she hadn't even realized she'd fallen into. A first breath of the rapidly cooling air made her shiver violently under her half-dry cloak and clutch it around her. It was hard to think especially coherent thoughts when every movement still made pain tighten around her ribs - and Merrin wasn't at all sure that she didn't have a fever. She felt ill enough for it to certainly have been so.

Pundy sat on the opposite side of the tiny cave they'd taken shelter in when the wind got uncomfortably cold. Kiril was asleep with her head in his lap. The mariner glanced up when Merrin stirred, and his grim expression made her instantly aware that something wasn't right. Besides, of course, being stuck on a deserted island with no food - and in Merrin's case, at least one broken rib and very likely more. It took her a moment to remember what Pundy could be looking so grim about, and another to get painfully to her feet and go to the cave mouth with fingers of ice already wrapping themselves around her sinking heart.

Nearly dusk. The sun was a glowing sphere of blood-red, descending into a shroud of vermilion-tinted clouds. Merrin didn't realize how hard she was biting her lip until it began to hurt - he had to have been gone five or six hours by now.

"He didn't come back?" she said, turning to Pundy. His face told the whole story. Merrin suspected her own expression was as fixed. Not Kendath. Gods, no, please, please let him be all right - oh, gods - her last plea was uttered aloud, the words a barely discernable moan.

Pundy started upright, carefully laying the sleeping Kiril's head on the rough stone, and reached to lend a supporting arm to Merrin. She looked liable to collapse any moment, pale as a ghost as she was, with eyes overbright and feverish. "Lass - "

"He didn't come back." Merrin repeated the words to herself as if trying to solve a puzzle. It helped to fend off the bleakly terrifying reality of losing Kendath. She took a long, unsteady breath. "The island's not very big. We have to find him."

Pundy's hesitation was very likely more due to Merrin's current and very dubious physical state than to Kendath's warning. "I'll go alone, then," she snapped, moving to do that very thing. It was irrational and probably dangerous, as she would have realized had she stopped for even a moment to consider, but Merrin was in no state of mind to work things out coolly. She'd lost everything but Kendath. She wasn't going to lose him too.

"All right, all right, I'm coming!" she heard him growl upon going two steps out of the cave, and stopped. He exited carrying the exhausted Kiril piggyback, and gave her a grim look. "You look liable to faint any moment, lass, are you - "

"I'm sure," said Merrin. How could she not be?

A half hour of staggering up the rocky beach brought no fruition. Not even a footprint. Merrin turned to face the jungle, expression set.

"There I'll not go." Pundy's voice carried an unmistakable undercurrent of regret, but he indicated Kiril. "I've a duty to her."

Merrin nodded mutely. She must have looked bleakly despairing, because he seemed to grapple inwardly for a moment. He shook his head. "I hope you find him, lass."

Even without the foliage beng especially difficult to get through, Merrin had to stop after barely five minutes to collapse against a tree. The world spun and she righted it with an iron will born of desperation. Dull, tangled trees and vines loomed ahead, going on indefinitely - and no Kendath.

Her determination fought valiantly, but the scuffle lasted only seconds. Merrin sank to her knees, tears spilling over. He's dead. He's dead, I know he is - why wouldn't he have come back - gods, why, why Kendath? I can't do it alone. I can't. She hugged her knees to her chest, back against the tree, and sobbed into them. Is this how it's supposed to end? I never told him...I never told him...

"I love you," she gasped between sobs, not even caring that pain was making her dizzy and her head pounded violently. "I love you, I love you, I love you." It hurt to talk - it hurt to move - it hurt to breathe. But most painful was to think, and somehow be unable to shake the conviction that he was dead, and she'd never told him.

Tears were still blurring her vision when at last pain took over and even thought dissolved into crushing blackness.

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(okay, from reading a few pages it seems as if Evlyn has been completely shunted out of the story. Would there be an appropriate moment for me to shunt her back in?)

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Made by Lembas

Garthag enjoyed the silence for a moment until he realized that there was someone moving around, he could hear perhaps a slight whisper in the wind or so he thought. He quietly began to whisper a spell that would allow him to wield a small number of miniature fireballs, he couldn`t be sure who was near him, but he wouldn`t be surprised were it to be Kendath or Merrin. Yet then again you never knew and Garthag was just about to make a full maneuver to scatter the fireballs all around him when his thoughts were cut short.

There was a silent tune in the air and Garthag concentrated on listening to it, who on earth had decided that it was time to play music and why had he stopped his move? Why would anyone do so knowingly when danger was upon them? Was it some sort of magic or an illusion? No, how could he have fallen for something like that all of the sudden without noticing a thing? Garthag lowered his hood and stood up, he slowly turned his head towards where he had heard the sounds at first. At that moment what he saw before him made him realize what was going on, A siren, he heard read of these beautifully treacherous creatures. Garthag tried to think and fight back somehow, even by his mere willpower, but in a short moment he fell into pitch blackness whilst trying to grab a hold of something, anything. He wanted to scream out the spell words and set the whole beach aflame, but he couldn`t grasp onto anything before his consciousness faded away.

Sadly for someone like him who had once been powerful enough to kill dragons, he was only able to grab onto the fact of he was utterly helpless and powerless before the music.

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Let him curse my name
On these blood stained pages of misery
Let him call me a tyrant so cruel
Let him curse my name, but remember the truth!

White. Everywhere. White and gold. He walked in a dream, or was it a dream? A melody so beautiful, so painfully haunting... "Come." A voice, radiant and laughing, on the clarion notes. Without hesitation, without second thought, he acquiesced. Music hummed in his ears that felt like velvet, leading him onwards... Suddenly, there she was. The winged woman, her robes billowing around her alluring form, her arms outstretched in invitation. Drawn by the song, he staggered towards her like a man dying of thirst, one foot in front of the other, reaching...

The woman was gone. He stood at the precipice of a yawning chasm, though he couldn't stop himself, couldn't stop... Falling. Falling through space, darkness, time...

Kendath awoke with a gasp. In his mind's eye he could still see the shadows of perdition welcoming him to the chasm, only now there was no chasm. The shadows belonged to trees, desolate frames that may have once grown lush with vines and palm leaves, but were now gray as the mist embracing them. And there was another shadow, darker and more looming...

The volcano. Hands and feet bound, he lay on his back at the base of the cinder cone. He strained his ears but heard nothing, none of the haunting melody. Only silence - that damp, oppressive silence that so characterized this cursed isle. He craned his neck to the left and spotted another bound, prone figure ten feet away. Garthag. So the mage had succumbed as well. Who would have ever guessed? Sea dragons... and now sirens...

There she was once more - the lovely winged woman. A blink and she was gone. Imagination. The dream again. Kendath closed his eyes and pounded his aching head thrice on the soggy ground. How much time had passed? More than an hour, that was certain, though the perpetual gloom made telling time a bit difficult. Would they come after him? The pall of mist only deepened as one ventured farther from the beach. No one would ever find him, and he wasn't sure if that thought brought relief or despair.

Too much thought. Too much thinking. Had to stop... headache...

He twisted his neck again to glance at his fellow captive. He wet his throat and managed a hoarse, "Garthag?"

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Merrin raised her head. The movement came curiously without pain, without weariness or the urge to lay it back down. Dry leaves and underbrush clung to her hair, and her hands went to extricate it before freezing in midair. A gasp of wonder was also painless, and the air felt scented with something sweet and fresh, like after rain.

The jungle was bathed in white mist, curling around hanging vines that no longer looked ominously grasping. The light was very bright, bright enough that Merrin had to lower her eyes and blink. Slowly, and not without pain this time - though it was as the memory of hurt compared to what she'd felt before - she used the tree to help her upright. The light was very bright, especially further into the jungle, but not painful to look at. Merrin took a step forward, and something brushed her mind ephemerally, so faint she could only catch a whisper. Merrin...

Her steps took her closer, past the vine-hung trees, as if in a dream. Every so often she felt a twinge of pain, but it was curiously dim. Suddenly it grew brighter, and she had to shield her eyes with a forearm, squinting. The same thing brushed her mind again, only this time it felt as though the luminous mist was curling around her, caressing her, smoothing away hurt and fatigue and worry. Merrin sighed, and that too was dreamy. He lives, Merrin Dragonrider, Chosen of the Gods. He lives yet. Do not despair...

The words faded, and so did the mist, but before it had quite gone Merrin felt a hand tipping her chin up, and blue eyes like her own - only unfathomably deep and pure and radiant - caught her gaze. She took a wondering breath and reached out, but her fingertips met nothing except water droplets clinging in the air.

The next moment she was raising her head off the ground again, and bits of bracken clung to it, but there was no white mist. Uncertainly, she rose to her feet. The pain was not gone, but it had lessened - if not so much as it had in the dream. Merrin put her hand to her forehead - no fever. The dream. She started, replaying it in her mind in increasing wonder, standing there motionless until she came to the words. He lives.

She made a noise halfway between a cry and a gasp, and whirled as if to break herself out of a trance. There as nobody in sight. And yet...what was that on the air? Music?

It was very faint, too faint even to tell what instrument was playing, and Merrin had to stand and strain to hear for a moment before she could even tell what direction it came from. She hesitated. It could mean nothing - but it could mean something, something important. He lives.

She started in a roughly pinpointed direction, determination no longer fueled by fear. He was still alive.

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It's actually closer to 7 1/2 pages, but here it is--my long-awaited post.

Be sure you read it.

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When he had left Kendath in Vryngard that fiery night, Jhoran and Dawn had returned to the skies, a flickering display of fireballs, of glares of light off of armour and scales, and of plummeting bodies and showers of blood. Flame blazed around them in streams that left them blinded temporarily, and the constant proximity to other dragons made manuevering even more exhausting than normal, for both Dawn and his rider, clutching tightly to the saddle.

A sudden dive landed them right on the back of an unsuspecting Meiltha dragon and its rider, who had been in the midst of attacking a Renegade Paladin. Dawn’s impressive size made them drop completely, neither dragon able to fly with the added weight, though Dawn was staying on top of the other one. Jhoran held on tightly, grateful for the straps that held him in the saddle. With the snap of breaking bones, Dawn broke the neck of the smaller dragon and vaulted off of it into the air again, leaving the corpse to keep falling, finally impacting in the horde of Meiltha soldiers below.

As they climbed for altitude again, Jhoran craned his neck to look for targets or threats, knowing without looking that Dawn was doing the same. As close to the ground as they were, they were great targets for any alert enemies. Dawn batted his wings to push them sideways just as another bronze-coloured dragon dropped past, talons outstretched. Dawn roared as the Meiltha dragon raked his side, but then turned and latched onto the enemy’s head, claws digging in hard. That was the problem with dives towards your enemy—if they dodged, then they suddenly had the advantage of altitude. Dawn made full use of it, raking the Meiltha dragon’s back with his hind legs, and inadvertently kicking the Meiltha rider off. Under the torrent of fire that Dawn was breathing onto it, the Meiltha dragon slowly stopped resisting, its scales giving off noticeable steam, and its eyes glassing over. With one last thrash, it went limp, and Dawn let it go.

That made four Meiltha down in return for Merrin, counting the ones they had killed before Jhoran dropped Kendath off. Only infinite more Meiltha to go to make up for losing someone as important to the Renegades as Merrin was. The Chosen of the gods could not allowed to remain captive.

Head for higher skies, Jhoran thought to Dawn, not enjoying the targets that they made down low. As they rose once more, a cadre of Meiltha dragons came towards them, and Jhoran sighed. He would have bet on himself and Dawn to beat any single Meiltha dragon/rider duo, but they couldn’t take on four all by themselves, not with any hope of survival. He drew his scimitar, ready to take down as many as he could with himself and Dawn, and a flight of Renegade dragons plunged into the Meiltha. Bestial roars and gouts of flame filled that area of sky, and Jhoran hastily directed Dawn towards it. He had no qualms about attacking an enemy who was already fighting.

With the odds now six against four, the Renegade dragons were left searching for new targets as more Meiltha beasts crashed to the ground. Jhoran and Dawn flew with the others, as they navigated the battlefield that was the sky, sending Meiltha after Meiltha tumbling to the ground.

Unfortunately, the Renegade dragons that were falling were only a few less than the Meiltha dragons falling, and the Meiltha could afford it far more easily. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, the Renegades were being driven back. Perhaps they could hold their own in the skies, but Vryngard was being demolished by catapults and overrun with foot soldiers.

After hours of fighting without pause, Jhoran and Dawn had to return to their slowly-falling stronghold. Dawn’s bronze hide was covered in blood, and the tears left by talons testified that not all of the blood was from his enemies. Jhoran’s scimitar was dripping with a coat of slick blood, too, and a gash across his forehead. His emblazoned cloak now hung by tatters, under which his hauberk was rent and torn as well.Like many other Renegades in the upper tiers, they barely avoided collapsing when they landed. Weariness made their very bones ache, and Jhoran felt as though he might never feel rested again. Dismounting from Dawn, he nearly fell off, but managed to unsaddle his Dragon, letting the Healers see all of his wounds.

“Off,” one of the Healers said tiredly, looking him over.

In his bleary state, Jhoran managed an intelligent-sounding “Unh?” in reply.

“Your armour,” the Healer said patiently. “You have wounds that we can’t get to because of your armour.”

With the help of some of the less-injured dragonriders, Jhoran managed to peel his armour and tunic off, grimacing at the fresh wave of pain that the actions cost him. A bucket of cold water was then dumped over him to wash the blood off, and the healers sighed. He was far from the first, or the last, patient that they would be working on that night, but he was in bad shape.

“You’re still in flying shape,” said the only Healer who seemed to be capable of talking. “Just don’t get ripped to pieces.”

Jhoran blinked at that piece of advice. They could hardly be expecting him to want that to happen, could they?

You look pretty bad, he thought to Dawn. The dragon was actually being healed by a mage, instead of having a salve applied to his wounds.

I’ve seen you in better shape, Dawn replied. Jhoran grunted, though it was anyones guess if it was in reply to Dawn or simply because of the stitches he was being given. A salve was rubbed on top, and bandages were wrapped around them, a little more tightly than Jhoran would have liked.

Putting his tunic back on, and donning the new hauberk that had been fetched from the armoury for him, Jhoran was about to mount up on Dawn when a guard ran up to him.

“Commander Thorone requires your presence,” the guard panted—obviously, he had seen that Jhoran was about to leave, and thus had increased his pace by no small margin.

Jhoran would have squinted in thought as he followed the guard inside, but he was too exhausted. All he could manage was a polite request as to why he was wanted by Commander Thorone.

“I was not informed, Jhoran Dragonrider,” the guard said, casting an eye at the emblem on Jhoran’s ragged cloak. Tired as he was, Jhoran couldn’t help but wonder why everyone gave him such looks. He had three younger brothers and two sisters who were also in the Renegade ranks, but so far as he had seen, they never were treated out of place.

Then again, they had not been wandering the world for the last five years on their family quest—they had been trying to work their way up through the ranks enough that they could leave, just like he had. Perhaps when they had left for a few years and become minor legends, they would get the same looks. He could always hope.

He and the guard arrived at Commander Thorone’s war room, where a constant stream of messengers brought news of the battle so that the Renegades might possibly be able to win, or at least survive.

“You sent for me, my lord?” Jhoran asked Thorone.

“Yes.” The reply was sharp, but a moment later Thorone led him away from the bustle of activity and pitched his voice low. “It has been decided that we will abandon Vryngard in order to ensure the survival of the Renegades, and give the Meiltha a costly, but incomplete, victory. We could hold out for several more days if need be, but to do so would only prolong the defeat. We will leave now, and regroup at the Burning Glacier. The children have already been evacuated through the tunnels, as well as the hatcheries. Our ground troops and healers are pulling out now—a small group has volunteered to remain behind to hold off the Meiltha.”

Jhoran’s hopes had plummeted at Thorone’s first words, but he was nodding in understanding at the end.

“It makes sense, my lord, but I assume that there is more, is there not?”

Thorone nodded in confirmation. “I am afraid that as news of our defeat spreads, some of our more hotheaded garrison commanders might try to exact revenge upon the Meiltha. Messengers will be sent to them to tell them to stay put—you will be one of them.”

Jhoran nodded again, and Thorone continued. “I will not give you written orders, in case you are captured. I’m sending you because you are well-known and respected that the commander will not question your word. You will be going to Lor Odynn. Leave as soon as you are ready.”

Jhoran put his fist to his heart in a salute, locking eyes with Thorone. A part of him knew that the Commander would be one of those who remained behind.

“It has been an honour to be numbered among your allies, Commander,” Jhoran said.

Thorone dipped his head in acknowledgement, and Jhoran walked out. Lor Odynn was not a long flight, merely two or three days, but Dawn had no provisions right now. Sending a guard off to gather what he could, Jhoran relayed the entire conversation to Dawn.

The Commander is remaining behind, the dragon thought to him.

That’s much the same as what I thought, Jhoran replied sadly.

If the Renegades survive this, there will be a new statue—for him, Dawn said, in a though that left no room for argument, even if Jhoran hadn’t agreed with it.

In the courtyard, Dawn was impatient, and looking at the sky, Jhoran knew why. The fighting was still as fierce as it had been earlier, but now it was decidedly closer, enough that the defenders of Vryngards inner walls were now blasting Meiltha dragons out of the air with lightning bolts and fireballs and other magic weaponry. The Renegades were losing, though.

The guard returned with the supplies, and Jhoran wasted no time in stowing them behind Dawn’s saddle and mounting.

“May the gods favor you all,” Jhoran whispered to those in the courtyard as Dawn leapt into the air.

Getting away from the conflict took a few tricks and a few dead Meiltha, but Jhoran and Dawn managed it, flying on a course that would take them straight to Lor Odynn—once they stopped their terrain-flying and were sure that there was no pursuit.

That night they flew for several hours before landing below the snowline on a mountainside. They ate, dimishing their provisions severely thanks to their hunger, then Jhoran slept while Dawn kept watch. Several hours before dawn, Jhoran took over the watch, and Dawn slept. Shortly before he was going to wake Dawn, Jhoran noticed several shadows cross over the stars. He held still, not knowing if the dragons were Meiltha or Renegade, and hoped that they would pass by. When they didn’t come back, he let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding, and went to waken his dragon.

The second day passed much more slowly, without any attacks and fights for their lives to quicken the time, and Jhoran rested, knowing that with the amount of gliding Dawn was doing, the dragon was recovering his strength as well. Both, however, were thinking about the defenders at Vryngard.

The campfire that night wasn’t what warmed Jhoran. The chill in the air hadn’t bothered him even before Dawn made the fire. Whenever others gave their lives to because of others, or even more when they gave their lives because of him, he felt his chest light on fire. It was odd, really, that so many had died fighting beside him or holding off enemies for him, while he still lived. Out of all of those he had ever met, he figured that he himself was the one who was the most ready to die for someone else, or even just die, but he had something that stopped him. It stopped both him and his siblings. It was the Oath that they had sworn as soon as they were old enough to realize what they were saying. That they would never give up their quest to destroy the Shadowers. Everyone of his family held their word dear, and would never even think of breaking it, and so Jhoran had never managed to convince himself to let himself die. To do so would be to abandon his quest and break his word. Still, the conflict of two things that he felt he should do generated enough heat in him that he stayed warm. It had been his companion many times.

On his watch that night, a shadow loomed up in front of him, and he felt more than saw shadows appearing behind him. The moonlight glinting off of helmets gave them away, and Jhoran drew his scimitar, shouting for Dawn to wake up. The first shadow rushed at him, and the dragonrider parried a sword-thrust. He had no doubts that these were Meiltha, now.

As Dawn rose to his feet, the moonlight momentarily vanished from Jhoran’s face. Dawn, get into the air! he shouted in his mind. There are Meiltha dragons, and we’ll both be killed if you stay down here!.

He spun and slashed, trying to fight his way to his dragon’s side, then gave it up. Even if he did manage to mount Dawn, the soldiers would wound the dragon enough that they would both be slaughtered by the Meiltha dragonriders in the air. He saw Dawn lift into the night sky, roaring out a challenge, and heard the answering calls—two dragons, then, against one. They came from low to the trees, though, so Dawn had a chance. He saw all three shapes straining for altitude inbetween dodges and parries.

He blocked a low thrust and lunged, and felt his sword meet something solid at the same time that the Meiltha let out a gurgling scream. Drawing out his sword, Jhoran backed towards the campfire, and his opponents came with him. Now, though, he could see them more clearly.

A twig snapped behind him. As he whirled around, Jhoran sent another thought to Dawn.

Don’t come back.

Then something heavy hit the back of his head, and everything went black.

When he came to, the first thing he noticed was that he was in a very uncomfortable position, with his hands tied behind him to his ankles. The next thing he noticed was that his head still hurt, followed by noticing that his armour, cloak, and scimitar were gone, not that he was surprised. Opening his eyes, he saw that he was in the middle of a small Meiltha camp in a clearing. Small meaning that it only had around twenty small tents and one larger one, which mean forty soldiers and their commander. Not very good odds. The few soldiers he could see looked sloppy, but they didn’t look depressed. If their morale was good, they had probably heard about Vryngard already.

Dawn? he called groggily. There was no answer. That either meant that Dawn was far enough away that he couldn’t hear him, or that Dawn was….

No. He and Dawn had come through worse situations together. Dawn was still alive, somewhere.

Glancing past the camp, he noticed that the mountains were gone, and the trees were different. How long had he been out? Here he could smell the salt-tang of the ocean. For them to be that far away, he would have had to have been out for days.

A boot approaching his face rapidly cut his wonderings short, and he ducked away in time to lessen the blow so that it only made him lose consciousness again, instead of shattering his face and making him lose consciousness.

When he woke up this time, he was still in an uncomfortable position—albeit shackled, this time--sore, and bereft of his weapons and armour, and he still couldn’t sense Dawn. The sea-tang was definitely stronger, though, and the ground was moving. Opening his eyes revealed that the ground was actually boards. In fact, everything around him seemed to be made of boards. After listening to it creak and feeling it rock for a few minutes, Jhoran decided he was on a ship. In a ship, actually, since he was belowdeck. They had to have given him something to keep him unconscious that long.

Shifting his position as much as he could, he groaned as unused muscles screamed in protest at the sudden movement. A moment later, he heard someone nearby call out.

“He’s awake, sir! I heard him myself, I did!” Apparently, someone was supposed to be guarding him. The thump of boots on the deck above promptly turned into the thump of boots on the stairs coming down, which then became the thump of boots on the deck he was on.

A moment later, the officer and two soldiers came into view.

“Get him to his feet,” the officer snapped to the guards, who unlocked the shackles around his ankles before lifting him up. They had to hold him there for a moment until he could unbend his legs enough to stand on them.

“To whom should I entitle my statements?” Jhoran asked, his words slurred together as his tongue tried to get used to making coherent sounds again.

“I am Captain Tonar,” the officer said, his voice dripping contempt, “but you will address me as ‘sir.’”

Jhoran gave a derisive snort, and was rewarded by a slap to the face with a gauntleted hand that sent him sprawling. After the guards lifted him to his feet again, Tonar got into his face.

“Where are the Renegades regrouping?” the captain asked, twisting his face into something that he probably thought resembled fearsome.

Jhoran met the captain’s gaze and said nothing.

“We can make you scream through endless hours of suffering if you refuse to talk,” Tonar threatened.

Jhoran didn’t say anything, but he made sure that it was visible when he closed his jaw firmly.

The captain beckoned the guards to follow him, and they took Jhoran into a sound-proofed room.

The Endless Hours of Suffering ended lasting only for an hour or so before the ship jolted hard enough to send the guards and the captain flying into the hull. Jhoran, spread-eagled and strapped down to their crude rack, smiled. It was fairly hard to do with his lip split in so many different places, along with his broken nose and other injuries, and it probably wasn’t worth it, but he did it anyway. It was enjoyable to see the Meiltha discomfited.

The esteemed Captain Tonar, however, ignored him. “What was that?” he snapped to one of the guards. “Find out, and report back to me.”

The guard had just left the room when the ship jolted again, and this time, when it started to roll, it didn’t right it self. It didn’t even seem to be moving at all—it was stuck at a list.

The captain swore and left the room, telling the remaining guard to bring the prisoner. When Jhoran was half-dragged abovedeck, his eyes widened. The ship had hit a shoal not far offshore from some land, and now the esteemed Captain Tonar was a little bit vexed, which was made apparent by the orders he was shouting at the Meiltha crewmen.

They started taking boats to shore, but only the first one—the one that held the esteemed Captain Tonar and Jhoran—had beached when Jhoran heard a feral roar behind him. Seeing Tonar’s angry face drain of colour, along with those of the six guards who had come ashore with them, Jhoran craned his neck to look over his shoulder.

Two boats were overturned in the water with crewmen swimming for their lives against the weight of heavy armour and high waves, and where the third had been were only floating timbers and a spreading cloud of blood in the water. That, and the serpentine monster that was taking its time killing those who weren’t on the ship or on the shore.

Though Jhoran turned his head away before long, Tonar and the other Meiltha watched with expressions of horror until the sea dragon consumed the last of its prey.

“Let’s go more inland,” the esteemed Captain Tonar finally managed to say.

They hadn’t gotten very far when they heard the first strains of music.

Jhoran regained consciousness. Again. This time, even though he hurt far worse than he had the previous times, and he had a lot less blood in him, he opened them to a more pleasant sight. Around him, the esteemed Captain Tonar and the six guards were also bound, all lying on the same rocky surface that he was. And beyond them….he blinked. Two more bound figures, one garbed in pale robes and the other in dark tatters. That one was also waking up, and looking around. Well, looking to his left, anyways. That meant that he would be seeing whoever it was in the pale robes, but not Jhoran or the Meiltha. When the figure looked in their direction, Jhoran gasped, a great ragged breath drawn in through a raw throat. Kendath?

The last time he had seen the dragonrider, the man had been in something close to a state of despair at the loss of first his dragon and then at the loss of Merrin. What was he doing here?

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(Very nice post mate.
Are people going to answer me or do i have to start makeing threats? )

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Made by Lembas

[Anduril, seeing as they're on a slab of rock in the middle of nowhere, kind of hard to jump in... unless you're Reindeer, who made a bloody nice post. 7.5 pages... wow, what a freak. ]

Kendath's head was still pounding, and it was helped by neither the soggy ground nor the pall that seemed to weigh down, a suffocating blanket, on his temples. Fortunately for him, it didn't take much brains to figure out that Garthag didn't look inclined to awaken anytime soon. Something else registered through the haze as well - slight but shattering the silence like a thunderclap.

A welcome committee of kinks greeted his effort to crane his neck back, which quickly convinced him to abandon the attempt, but not before he caught a glimpse of glinting hauberks and a face staring back - a face that looked vaguely familiar. He racked his brains - his hurting brains - and came up with a conglomerate of broken images, most revolving around fire and death and pompous Renegade knights. Likely his imagination again. There were plenty of pompous Renegade knights, and all of them looked the same under their pretty, plumed helms anyway.

A prickle on the nape of his neck relegated further inciters of headaches - also known as thinking - but the new subject of attention was no more cheerful. Something... no, multiple somethings were crawling up his neck, and whatever they were had sharp claws that dug into his flesh like razors. It wasn't until he spotted the pincers and chitinous shells that he recognized them, and promptly wished he hadn't looked. Scorpians. As always, ignorance was bliss.

A second stroke of fortune banished that thought as well - or was it fortune? He hadn't decided yet, but as soon as the first strains of eldritch melody came drifting through the trees, the scorpians were gone, skittering back into their holes or wherever they'd come from. With it came faint light, filtering through the mist, and a female voice raised in song....

And Kendath swore then and there - if he ever encountered another siren again, he'd simply go with the swift death and gut himself.

There were three of them, sashaying forth with laughter in their silver eyes. Two of them bore instruments - a lyre and a flute - but the one between them held nothing. Their filmy robes left little to the imagination, and from the gasps behind him, a few men had already succumbed to the spell. All three advanced, swaying, smiling as though harboring some sweet secret....

Kendath closed his eyes, obstinately blocking out the music that slid through his ears like velvet. In the spirit of regaining some sanity, he strained the ropes around his wrists, wincing as the rough hemp cut into his flesh. No avail there. He had to keep working at it, had to keep concentrating... because now the sirens were speaking, and against his will he felt himself floating as though on a cloud, rising to his feet...

"What marvelous gifts the sea serpent has brought us. Come... come... Lift your heels and follow us..." Still laughing, they turned and glided into the trees, up what he dimly recognized to be the slope of the volcano. "Follow us..."

And Kendath did exactly that.

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Merrin stumbled and fell for the umpteenth time, thudding to hands and knees in the moist mixture of soil and decaying plant beneath her. She stopped in that position, chest heaving, to catch her breath.

Before her loomed the large, blunt-topped shape of the volcano, a thin yet steady wisp of smoke trailing from its crater. Up the steep slopes the greenery only grew more fertile, save in places where sheer rock formed a cliff. Already Merrin was panting from scaling the initial slopes, and she felt sticky with sweat as the heat grew more intense. Her hair, which had been dry, was hanging in damp tendrils that kept getting in her eyes. But the music was growing more distinct.

Gritting her teeth, Merrin pulled herself to her feet and stood still to crane her neck up at the sky beyond. It was slowly darkening, to a deep azure rather than the smooth periwinkle of midday and afternoon. Yet the heat was only growing more intense. Not for the first time, she swallowed uncertainty and loosened her sabre in its sheath. Once, she'd lost the sound of the music entirely and turned back, only to catch the faintest flash of white mist in her peripheral vision and whirl to see a wisp of it dissolving directly where she'd stood a moment before. Since then she'd followed the faint, lyrical sound doggedly.

Upon trudging a few steps further, boots sinking into the loose dirt, Merrin caught sight of an imprint in the soil. A pair of bare feet, their steps leading a short way further up the mountainside - feet just the size of Merrin's own, had she not been wearing the soft boots that she was. Curious, she bent to trace the imprint with her fingertips. That was not Kendath, or Garthag, or even Pundy or Kiril - though they would not have ventured into the jungle. And it was certainly not Merrin herself. Brows knotted in a bemused frown, she absently tossed her hair out of her face and followed them.

Not five steps later, the tread grew lighter and Merrin bent, again following the steps with her fingers. Oddly, they seemed to almost change shape - the whole footprint grew thinner and sharper, and the toes almost seemed to grow longer -

Very suddenly, the dirt trail she followed was replaced by level rock and the trail itself, of course, vanished. Merrin glanced up and was met by a flat plateau of roughly level stone that ran parallel to the mountainside for a few paces, and escalated into an even rougher sort of crude stairway.

For a moment she stood, grappling inwardly. That, surely, was not normal. Even volcanoes did not have stairways on their slopes. What might she find at the top of that long climb? And yet...swiveling to scan the foliage-encumbered cliffs, she did not see a way that would not put her in imminent danger of falling to her death. Biting her lip, she put a hand briefly on the hilt of her sabre and gingerly ascended, gaze shifting uncomfortably.

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They were calling for him again, in his right mind and power he would have scorched these cursed hags, but again he had to admit he did not possess the strength to oppose them. Their voices dragged him from the ground and forced him to move his sore feet forwards, despite the aching and the pain his body following unwillingly. Their fates seemed dim and there was a little hope of escape now that they had fallen under the spell, he knew himself from experience the power of such spells. How many times had he used people like puppets? Forcing them to play as petty sacrifices in his quest for power and glory? The irony was overwhelming as he had once wondered what it would feel like and now he knew, it frustrated and angered him beyond compare.

If his gaze could have killed, he would have been already sending lightning bolts in the distant backs of those three sirens. But it was useless, even the thoughts of resistance seemed petty and pointless, again was this to be his end? It didn`t seem to fit him, he would have wanted to die at least a little more glamorous death for example to have been known as the ruler of the frozen north and then slain by some god send Renegade hero. In that way someone might have remembered him in as the villain of some tales, but if he could have said the word outloud, `power` would have sounded dry on his tongue and like a distant truth, never to be again grasped by him. Perhaps his chance had already gone and he had failed. Garthag hmhed at the thought as he sluggishly moved after the sirens.

What nonsense! He would not die here, not by the hand of some wretched sea witches that waited for a dragon to leave them it`s leftovers. Garthag recognized the figure before him, Kendath, so his sneaky friends had survived? But Merrin was not around and Garthag would have smirked, if he would have wanted to arouse suspicions, hopefully Merrin could not fall under their spell and save them. Chosen of the gods indeed, she seemed like their only hope unless the sirens spell could be broken by some other methods. Garthag ran trough various possibilities in his mind as his sore body was pulled along by the spell of the sirens, upwards and ever upwards, up the slope of the volcano.

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Let him curse my name
On these blood stained pages of misery
Let him call me a tyrant so cruel
Let him curse my name, but remember the truth!

(All i asked for my dearest brother-in-law was an appopriate place when i might jump in in the future. Not now )

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Made by Lembas

Brother-in-law?

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Jhoran's mind spun. What under the sky was Kendath doing in this place? How could the ex-Meiltha have ended up here? Where was Merrin? It went without saying that Kendath wouldn't have left her to the Meiltha--either she was dead, or she somehow was here. The gods had placed those two together, and Jhoran doubted that anything short of death would keep them apart, even if they didn't realize it themselves.

For that matter, what were the chances that he and Kendath both being Siren-prey in the same place at the same time was a coincidence? Apparently, his fate was tied in with the two Dragonriders as well.

He noticed something else, as well, though it had little to do with Kendath or Merrin. Here he was, a captured Renegade Dragonrider who had just been interrogated by an esteemed Meiltha Captain. He was now a mass of bruises and cuts of various sizes, and lying in a mass of his own blood, which thankfully he still had enough of to survive. Where were all of the blood-hungry insects? By all rights, they should be swarming him, chained, weak, and helpless as he was.

A repetitive quiet clicking sound drew his attention. Painfully shifting his head yet again, he looked for the source of the noice. He found it. He winced.

Scorpions.

He had a severe, undying, everlasting hatred for scorpions, second only to his hatred for the Shadowers. And yet, the scorpions weren't by him--they were by Kendath. Crawling around him and over him, their legs made that sound on the stony ground.

Just when the Dragonrider noticed, and reacted accordingly, Jhoran caught the sound of music at the edge of his hearing, and stiffened. In his shackles, that hurt, but he remembered the music--it was that which he had heard shortly before his last blackout. Still, it was beautiful music. It was a simple yet pretty melody, but it was so enchanting, it moved him. He blinked. It moved him? Music couldn't move people.

It moved him again.

As three maidens drifted out of the trees, Jhoran gasped in shock. They were beautiful, and they were also making the music--music which insisted on moving him. They paused near Kendath and the pale-robed man, then went back into the trees, heading uphill. As they went, Jhoran heard a word come seemingly out of nowhere and everywhere at the same time, though he knew that it was them who spoke it.

"Follow us."

Without any effort on his own part, Jhoran rose to his feet, stepping and stumbling after the three maidens as though in a dream. He still had some clarity of thought, though--when he realized just how sheer their robes were, he blushed and fixed his gaze elsewhere. When you travelled alone for years, your opinions of modesty and consequently immodesty didn't change much.

Of course, there was much else to wonder about. Who--and what--were they? In all of his travels, he had never before experienced anything like this. Apparently, no one else had, either--all of those who had been with him, including the Meiltha and the pale-robed man, were dazedly following the women, with various expressions, ranging from shock to anger, with a few others having expressions much like his own--expresions of wonder. What were they?

As they followed, though, the enchanting song started to affect more than just their bodies. Clear thinking became more difficult. Jhoran resisted at first, but eventually, he slipped off into the reaches of his own mind, where everything seemed at once both peaceful and decidedly lacking in pain.

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Like flies lured by lanterns, the men followed the sirens through the wood. They wove through the trees soundlessly, senselessly, like zombies, pale ghosts in the mist. Darkness was shrouding the east, cloaking the treetops in shadow. The volcano loomed over them, a black behemoth jutting into the darkness like an oversized fang. The sirens halted at its base and tilted their heads, their silver-gold hair flowing down their backs, their luminiscent eyes upturned. For one frozen moment, the music faded away.

They waited.

Blots of shadow - vulture-like birds - wheeled in the skies. Raucous caws issued from their throats and drifted down, borne by a blast of cold wind. The wind, akin to needles in intensity, bit into Kendath's face. This, coupled with the music trailing away, pierced his trance and jerked him, with a start of alarm, back to earth. It might as well have been a dousing of icy water. Not a pleasant experience. His mind was back. Registering? Sluggishly. Functioning? Well... He ordered his legs to move. Nothing happened.

Naturally, a little voice in the back of his head told him to panic. His faculties were creeping through molasses, but he forced himself to take one thought process at a time.

Still alive. Right. Be grateful. Couldn't draw his falchion. Couldn't move. Grateful. Hah. Calm down... Where on this cursed island was he? What had happened between his nap and... and this? Calm down. Think it through... Nightfall. Sirens. Volcano. Captive. Oh, gods.... Think. Think! Surprise, who's that? He does look familiar. Kendath glanced askance at his fellow captives, past Garthag, to one of the other men. The man hadn't been on Albatross, and he certainly wasn't Meiltha, like the other -

Meiltha! Eerie island in the middle of nowhere. Yet there were Meiltha soldiers here. Had they been shipwrecked too? Shipwrecked... curse it, what about Merrin? Time eluded him, but it'd certainly been more than an hour. Would she comply to his instructions still? If there were Meiltha on this island... and sirens and sea dragons and...

Time to stop thinking. Too much work.

Lyre, flute, and voice took up again, and Kendath sank thankfully into warm oblivion. The sirens called them forward. They were moving up the side of the volcano now, climbing what appeared to be an ancient stairway carved into the rock. The way, narrow and winding up the side of the volcano, was treacherous, but they never felt the stone slicing into their palms as they repeatedly tripped and caught themselves. The island below fell away into darkness, which only made the sirens' light seem all the more exuberant. The path snaked around many twists and turns, where the sirens' glow would fade around the bends, for the beautiful entities never stopped to wait for their clumsy followers. It was always in these times that the captives would scramble faster up the steps in a frenzied desperation. They were men thirsting for water, thirsting for the desert mirage that smiles and deceives. The sirens must not be let out of sight.

Suddenly the stairs ended, and they found themselves on a surprisingly sizable ledge, ten feet in width and length. Fatigue was now an acute emotion, and the men groped onto the ledge and collapsed. The volcano's summit was not far above them. The entire island could be viewed from here, a panorama of heath and sparse forests. Beyond was the sprawling black expanse of the ocean.

Anger sizzled through the air. All three sirens spun around, robes whipping about their ankles, to glare at the men. On the captives, anger translated to fear, and they scrambled back to their feet, shrinking against the volcano face behind them. The sirens kept playing their haunting melody, but somehow it sounded deeper, more guttural. Chains like coiled adders sprang forth from the stone and wound themselves around the captives' wrists and ankles. Without warning, the music ground to a screeching halt. All of it. Not even a residue of melody left.

And Kendath woke up.

It was the same feeling he had when awakening from a blunt blow to the head, and even the circumstances weren't much different, he noted wryly, glancing at the manacles. He was sore from head to foot as well, and blood smeared on his raw palms. As one vaguely recalls a dream, he remembered fragments of his trek up through the woods and up the volcano. The stars were out, unobscured by treetops, and they shone on the three sirens, sitting cross-legged on the other side of the ledge as though awaiting something. Chains clinked and voices murmured, some in complaint, others in awe, as his fellow captives stirred to vigilance around him. He caught snatches of their muttered conversation. Meiltha, no doubt. Shipwreck. Sea serpent.

There he was again. The man he'd thought he'd recognized earlier. The stranger had ever remained, a nagging curiosity, in the back of his mind. He juggled between curiosity and minding his own business for a while, before the former won. It wasn't as though he had anything better to distract himself with. Chains rattling, he crawled over to the man and swallowed repeatedly to wet his throat. "Do I know you?"

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Merrin, clinging with both hands to the vines that crept down the face of the volcano, took the latest in a series of slow steps up the crude stone stairs. Since the sun had vanished into a choppy sea, every inch of progress had been gained with her heart in her mouth, every step a risk of slipping to fall - fall who knew how far. She paused to suck in a gulp of the thick air, and felt a rush of relief upon glimpsing a moon low on the horizon. The moment lasted only until loose rock fell suddenly away under her boot, and Merrin experienced a heart-stopping moment of stepping into space. It was accompanied by a vine coming away in her hand, falling spine-chillingly limp. She leant against the cliff face, feeling her heart pound in the stillness.

There was no music, not any more, and Merrin hardly knew why she kept climbing. The stairs only kept going, continuing into a progressively more precarious state, and there had been no sign of anything besides the occasional bird, and once a snake as big around as her waist that had made Merrin freeze in petrified silence until it disappeared. But was it her only hope? Did it make any kind of sense that something possibly built by human hands could lead to someone human?

She gathered the fragments left of courage and kept going, step by infinitesimal step.

It was only her grip on a vine that saved her from gruesome death on the rocks far below when the stairs simply crumbled into nothing under her feet. Merrin clung to it in terror, searching for something with the toes of her boots, the barest foothold left - her arms ached piercingly and before she could make the conscious decision she was falling, clinging desperately to the lone vine. It let her slither down a cliff face puntuated by painful jabs of sharp rock, and deposited her, shaking, on a crude ledge.

Merrin lay there a moment, solid stone under her, and realized she was shaking too hard to move. It took an age to breathe normally again, and even then her own heartbeat was loud in her ears. The moon was higher, bathing everything in dim silvery light; she saw when she gathered the courage to look up. The pound of her heart diminished - enough to hear a lone sound penetrating the night. Without it Merrin would have huddled on that ledge quite some time longer, and as it was, she edged herself inch by inch to climb down to solid ground below, and once there scrubbed shaking, sweaty and scraped palms on her tunic, and swore silently never to climb anything ever again.

It appeared, nonetheless, that she would have to. On further examination, Merrin stood on a broad outcropping of rock that marked the division between the broad base of the volcano and its smaller, pointed cone. A timid venture revealed that this relatively easy path extended nearly halfway around the circumference of the mountain. Merrin drew her first deep breath in ages and began to follow the faint sound.

Further on, it could be pinpointed to be quiet sobbing, which identified Kiril before Merrin saw her.

The girl was huddled in a ball, face buried in her knees, and shrank away at first when Merrin knelt to put comforting arms around her. "Shhh, it's only me," she whispered. "Kiril, don't cry, don't cry - how did you come up here? Where's your uncle?"

"He fell," she managed through sobs. "He fell, and I wasn't scared when he didn't wake up, because you wouldn't wake up for a long time and then you did, but I saw some pretty ladies in the trees, and I went to ask them to help him, and - and - they came up here - but I couldn't get down." Any further explanation was drowned in tears, and Merrin felt her heart wrench with sympathy when attempting to unwind Kiril's arms from around her knees revealed bloody palms. Nonetheless, her mind raced. Who - ? Kiril's description revealed very little, only confused Merrin further. Nothing made sense - Kendath disappearing, Kiril talking about pretty ladies who vanished...Merrin felt a chill shiver down her spine. It was almost ghostly, the whole island.

To disguise her own fear, she coerced Kiril to her feet and kept up a string of encouragement until the girl was walking with her, around the edge of the volcano. But this time, when Merrin caught a snatch of haunting music before it abruptly ended in a chilling, ghostly echo, she was wary enough to put a finger to Kiril's lips and steal forward, every muscle tense and eyes shifting uneasily - as if to catch the edge of a garment that wasn't there, whipped by the wind, or see the speaker of whispered words that faded on the hot breeze. Her palms were damp.

The ground dropped away in a steep cliff a little ways forward, and Merrin stopped. A deep gorge sliced through two cliffs, two hundred feet below, and on the other side of the gap, she could glimpse the barest glimmer of light. It was impossible to see the source - Merrin could not even be sure it was light she saw, around the jutting shoulder of the mountainside - but it was something. Something she hadn't had before.

She slipped her hand into Kiril's. Both their palms were scraped and bloody. "We need to get across there," she whispered, bending until their eyes met. "Any ideas?"

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