Jhoran woke up, with the vague feeling as though he had done that several times already since the day started. This time, though, the waking up was harsher, and out of a more pleasant unconsciousness, in which he had seemed to be floating along among the clouds, blissfully unaware of the stabbing pain from the wounds inflicted by the not-so-esteemed Captain Tonar.

He, the Meiltha, Kendath, and the white-robed man were all sprawled out on a ledge, with the three maidens at the other end of it. With motion already restricted by the increased pain that accompanied any attempts at it, Jhoran didn't feel any reason to combat the odd sluggishness he was afflicted with. He still managed to pull himself to sitting position, just before the maidens turned around as though furious, and blind fear lanced through him. When it subsided, he hit the cliff wall before he even realized that he had been scrambling towards it, and the pain made him groan, a curiously ragged sound coming from his ragged throat.

The chains that mysteriously appeared to manacle his arms and legs made him shake his head in wonder, though, as thought started returning. He already was shackled, and had lost a considerable amount of blood, and was injured, yet for some reason he needed to be further secured? It didn't make much sense, but he couldn't do anything about it--yet, at least.

As the maidens resumed whatever it was that they were doing at the other end of the ledge, chains shook and clattered as the prisoners struggled around. Jhoran stayed where he was, dreading more movement.

From the rattle of chains nearby, he knew someone was drawing closer. If it was one of the Meiltha, he was going to ignore them. While he didn't harbor a large grudge against them, he still didn't see the point in being overly acquiescent to those who had just, in their terms, 'had a conversation with him.'

Whoever was next to him croaked a question. "Do I know you?" Even though he had a pretty good guess of who it was, Jhoran painfully turned his head to the side to see. It was Kendath, though the voice wasn't recognisable as such.

"I am Jhoran, of the House of the Seeker--I took you to Vryngard when you and the Chosen returned," Jhoran said, wincing as his parched throat eked the words out. "Has anything happened to her?" He didn't know Merrin personally, but as the Chosen of the gods, Renegade morale would plummet if any ill had befallen her.

He sized up Kendath's condition from this closer perspective. The man looked to be in slightly better shape than he himself was, but with blood seeping out of gashes on his palms and bruises adorning just about every visible part of Kendath's body, which due to the ragged state of the Dragonrider's clothing was a considerable amount. In the state of worn clothing, at least, Kendath had him beaten.

Jhoran's own tattered garments had not, at least, been doused in the frigid sea, or anything that would normally result from a shipwreck--the tunic was merely shredded in the back from the Meiltha's attempts to use a lash. Other than that, his clothes were mostly fine, no more threadbare than would be expected after having travelled alone for a long time in them.

Even as his thoughts were catching up with his situation, and even having just asked a question, Jhoran nodded slightly in the direction of the maidens.

"Do you know what they are?" he asked Kendath, still at a loss. This part of the world was not one that he had gone through with Dawn before.

He groaned again, the one mention of Dawn in his thoughts enough to bring back a deluge of memories--the most recent one being of Dawn launching himself into flight against several Meiltha dragons at once, accompanied by the sense of him that Jhoran felt now. Nothing. Now, as when he had stirred from unconsciousness the first time, he could not sense his dragon.

_________________

I am Jhoran was all Kendath and his semi-dead mind registered before he felt his gaze inevitably drawn to the man's weapons belt. And the swan-hilted scimitar strapped there.

Jhoran's presence seemed to have a fascinating capacity for making Kendath's jaw drop.

Now he was fully awake. Once he thought about it, he could recall the battle at Varigrand, when that great bronze dragon had plucked him off the bluff and borne him away from fiery chaos. How long ago had that been? The scimitar had earned itself a nice stare even then, but succeeding events had relegated it from thought. Now it was back, and familiar as ever. Adanil drawing his scimitar, Adanil parrying against Kendath's falchion, Adanil charging at the Shadowers with his scimitar held high....

Kendath mentally slapped himself. He knew little of Renegade weaponry. Who knew? There were probably a thousand swan-hilted scimitars, and being the observant social butterfly he was, he didn't make a habit of staring at Renegade weapons belts. In fact, he was all too happy to repel himself from any Renegade strolling his way. And what if it had belonged to Adanil at one point? They'd dropped Adanil off at a Renegade city - in all likelihood the sword had been passed down. It just seemed to strange to consider it. Two thousand years back in time. Tonight, coincidentally, on an island in the middle of nowhere.

And he, of all people, knew that coincidences don't exist. Fate? Gods? Very amusing, Kendath.

Interestingly or perhaps not so interestingly, the Meiltha soldiers behind him were grousing about that very matter - fate. Tough luck, eh Captain Tonar? What are the chances that the sea dragon picks our ship out of the dozen fleets leaving the east shore? Right after the victory at Vryngard, too. A few of them turned to expend their frustrations by method of glaring at Jhoran. Kendath coughed, twitched what remained of his tattered cloak over his Renegade falchion, and pointedly stared in the opposite direction.

He should have seized the opportunity to ask Jhoran about his scimitar, but he couldn't summon the necessary enthusiasm. His throat was parched, his arms felt like lead, and the blood dripping from a cut in his forearm was so much more fascinating than conversation. His armor chafed at his bruised flesh. The leather was torn in enough places to make him wince, and the thin tunic underneath would hardly save him. He itched - literally - to remove it, as it hadn't been properly dried after the delightful plunge in the ocean. He didn't even want to know how much mildew it had accumulated.

The sirens were on their feet again, staring at their captives, a strange primal hunger twisting their sculpted features. Wings slowly furling and unfurling, they swayed closer, arms extended like talons. No longer thinking them beautiful, Kendath scrambled back. His chains impeded his progress and dug painfully into his wrists and ankles, so that all he accomplished was falling on his back against the Meiltha soldier behind him.

That was when all three sirens tilted their heads and thrust their hands to the side, palms outward. And they screamed.

The sound was earsplitting, mindsplitting, slicing through the air like a serrated knife, shattering the night with the intensity of a thunderclap. An eerie cross between a banshee's shriek and that of some horrendous bird of prey's, it grated on Kendath's nerves and jolted his hands, which clapped themselves to his ears so hard his skull hurt. Even then, he couldn't shut it out. Crouched on that ledge a thousand feet above the ground, on that uncharted isle where no one would ever find him, he knew irrevocably that he was going to die.

Then it was over. The silence was deafening, still trembling with a residue of cacophony, as though the air braced itself for the next attack. Frigid wind gnawed its way around the volcano's peak and swirled past, biting down on them as it went. Above them, the vulture-like birds wheeled in the darkness and let loose piercing caws. Kendath counted to ten, then removed his hands from his ears and opened his eyes.

A split second later, he regretted that very action.

The sirens were shapeshifting, their willowy forms morphing, twisting into something grotesque. Mid-morph, they were terrible to behold - a mass of crunching bones and flesh melting into tangled feathers. All three of them stood rooted in place, as their limbs twisting and deforming, their arms melting into their wings, which were no longer ivory but a mottled brown. Their noses spilled forth into beaks, wicked and curved. Underneath the half-formed feathers, white bone protruded with their tips criss-crossed in pulsing veins.

Too slow. The entire process - too slow! Look away! his mind screamed, but he couldn't force his eyes to obey, rooted as they were in terrible thrall of the scene.

_________________

"Jump! Kiril - " Merrin hissed, arms outstretched, and caught a bundle of small girl at the exact moment that an agonizing shriek pierced the air and they both cried out, Merrin instinctively clutching Kiril close. It seemed an age of huddling there, hands pressed over ears, until Merrin could relax marginally, trembling. Her heart sprang into her mouth, a million terrifying and gruesome possibilities for the source of that unearthly cry lining themselves up in her mind to be examined in horrific detail. Hardly thinking of what she might be doing, Merrin groped for Kiril's hand and dashed along the steep ledge, stumbling on every second step but not caring in the least.

Her ears rang painfully, making other senses disoriented and sluggish, but Merrin uttered a cry of her own when, tugging Kiril along in her wake, she half-slid down a rough slope laden with loose bits of shale and stumbled upon the freakishly spellbinding scene that assaulted the unfortunate victims of the sirens. There was a moment where both froze, shocked into immobility by the sight, until Merrin's eyes locked with those of a very familiar figure clad in black tatters and she flung out a hand, already calling down white fire.

With her free hand she thrust Kiril away, shrieking over the roar of fire and the new cries of the sirens - "Chains! Get them - undo them - Kiril!"

And then there was no more time for speech. Flame from heaven enveloped the three bloodchilling figures, but they were by no means powerless in their own right. Half-bird, half-woman still, they drowned out any other sound with mindnumbing, eerie cries like a diving eagle and a scream simultaneously, sending Merrin reeling with only instinct to keep her on her feet. No other thoughts could be entertained in the all-encompassing struggle for power that ensued. Perhaps she was crying out as well, because Merrin could dimly feel her throat raw through the haze of white and the vise of deafening sound around her mind.

Kiril darted first to Kendath, nimble fingers groping for the ends of the chains. They loosened from the rock in a surprising crumble of broken stone - perhaps the sirens' magic was taken up entirely too much by Merrn's assault to concentrate on keeping their captives contained. One of the Meiltha soldiers worked a hand free, but time was running out. Kiril attempted futilely to push Kendath in the right direction before darting to Jhoran, screeching pleas for help over the din.

_________________

Jhoran's mind reeled, beleaguered by piercing screams that seemed to rend his very soul. He gritted his teeth and tried to force his ears to block out the sound. It availed but little, and in the few scattered seconds of sentient thought among the whirlwind of earsplitting pain, chaos and confusion that beset his mind, Jhoran managed to cover his ears, tensing every muscle and curling into a quivering mass of flesh as thought to get his knees over his ears as well.

Then it was silent. Jhoran raised his head and opened his eyes, then recoiled in horror. Even the trickle of blood flowing from his wounds that had just been reopened failed to gain his notice in light of what was happening. The maidens--those examples of seeming physical perfection, were changing. They were now a mass of distorted skin, feathers, and bone. Jhoran felt his stomach try to empty itself.

Then white fire enveloped the creatures, and the screaming resumed. Jhoran felt the agony return, but he also felt small fingers on the chains that held him trapped. Then they were loose, and he was free. Clambering to his feet, he put out a hand to steady himself as a wave of vertigo, enhanced by the screams of the creatures, washed over him. His hand missed, and he ended up bracing himself on empty air. As he saw the face of the cliff rising in his sight again, he tried to turn, and succeeded in keeping his face out of the impact. His skull smacked into the rock loudly, though, and for a few brief seconds all he saw, felt, and heard was black. Nothing.

Then sound, sight, and pain all returned, though oddly quieter. This time, though, Jhoran could see the little girl who had pulled his chains away from the rock. Kendath, too, was on his feet, and Merrin stood a short distance off, the strain on her face showing that she was the one who was holding off the creatures. Dazed, pained, and with more than one broken bone, Jhoran followed the little girl towards Merrin and escape, helpless to save the Meiltha even had he wanted to--with his hands still bearing the Meiltha chains, his movement was still limited.

The little girl ran down the path that they had ascended by, since any other way was impossible in Jhoran and Kendath's conditions. Looking over his shoulder, Jhoran tried to shout for Merrin to follow, but his tongue didn't want to cooperate. He managed to make it a sound that she might have barely managed to hear, at best. He grimaced, and adrenaline gave him the strength necessary to reach her and practically pull her along the path with Kendath, the three dragonriders hobbling, groaning, and gasping along the path with a frightened young girl who was trying to overcome her fear to help others.

Whatever the white fire was that Merrin had used, it was holding off the creatures themselves, but not the screams. Jhoran's mind was in a daze, and every step seemed like he was lifting a thousand pounds on his feet.

_________________

Oddly, Merrin seemed to be frantically attempting to dislodge Jhoran's hold on her. "There's more!" she panted, throat raw. "Let go - "

There was an instant of what looked like astonished realization as their eyes met, and then Merrin broke free to fight her way back up the remnants of broken staircase. Their shrieks still splitting the air, the half-transformed sirens dove as one and fire roared from Merrin's outstretched hand not a moment too soon. It dissolved into tendrils of white after mere seconds, marking her exhaustion. She fumbled her saber free and for a moment disappeared in a whirlwind of feathers and vicious talons.

The world spun around her and Merrin righted it out of pure determination. There were five - six - no, seven men still trapped to face the sirens' fury. Wrapping her fingers around the single chain that held the first one, Merrin wrenched it free and shrieked, "Help me!" Talons raked her shoulder. Turning to slash with her saber sprayed hot blood on the rock and resulted in a shriek that made her cry out in pain for the agony it wreaked on her ears, but seemed to have little effect otherwise. The man was still just standing there! "Idiot!" Merrin cried. She couldn't do it - turning her back to pull free the chains rendered her completely vulnerable to the sirens' talons. Dimly, in her peripheral vision, Merrin saw him move to free the next man, and then had to concentrate all her efforts on keeping the sirens at bay.

She'd seen the Meiltha armor they wore. Even with the precious little thought Merrin did not have to focus on the rapidly losing battle she fought, resignation filtered through. Kendath might understand - after all, it was him she'd set free last time - but the other would likely be angrily incredulous. The other - Adanil? No, it couldn't be, wasn't, Adanil - that rider from the siege of Vryngard -

There wasn't time for her thoughts to even attempt a struggle down that path. Merrin slashed - blocked - slashed again with her saber, hoping against hope that the Meiltha behind her had enough intelligence to see an opportunity when it bashed them in the head.

_________________

Garthag`s chains snapped by the effect of his magic as the creatures were distracted and he had been able to grasp back the control over his body, these vile beings were going to miss a supper. Yet that was not his main concern at the moment, not the deformed bird women, not the other prisoners or the fact that he had an opening to escape. He had a hard time believing what he was seeing and what he saw did little to please him, they were saved by the most unlikely person imaginable, Merrin. It had not been too long when she had been the one in need of saving and support from Kendath, she had been the weak one, but she now suddenly rose up to the occasion.

Yet Garthag could not help, but allow a quiet quirky smile creep onto his face as Merrin was off to continue her noble task of freeing the prisoners. Also the white fire that she wielded was not familiar or like anything Garthag`s had witnessed. Truth be told he had doubted Merrin from the start, but what he saw convinced him otherwise, but more than that it angered him. To be saved by the little tart, who would have normally sniveled at his feet! Garthag`s eyes narrowed and his smirk turned into a frustrated grin, his hands made few movements without heed to what happened around him or how close other might have been to the monsters. A fireball manifested itself before Garthag and darted into the midst of the sirens with great speed. The explosion threw down many at close range and even set the sleeve of Garthag`s robe on fire, he had not been fully able to control the magic he had unleashed.

Well no matter, after all good and noble Merrin had provided him an opening to barbecue these haughty harpies. Garthag took off and began moving as fast as he possible could out of the sirens lair, but something still bothered him. Who would come out of that place alive? Could Merrin be successful in her suicidal attempt to free the prisoners or would she be torn to shreds by the sirens. Well certainly the gods would take care of their beloved chosen.

_________________

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!

The explosion of white had turned to an explosion of flaming orange, and then dissipated leaving those blasted creatures as nothing more than a charred heap of grisly debris. Jediron spat on the corpses as he wrenched his second hand free of the rapidly disintegrating chains. The girl - woman? - opposite him was raising herself gingerly off hard stone, where she'd evidently been flung by the force of the explosion. She turned to look at the pile of gruesome remains with some amount of startlement, and he decided on girl. Girl - peasant girl? Chosen of the Gods?

The white fire instantly made sense. Any amount of gratitude on Jediron's part instantly fled. Who did these petty gods think they were? Better to die by the hands of the harpies than live at the hands of some emissary of inept, ineffectual gods! His mouth, without conscious effort, curled into a sneer.

She rose, looked once toward the stone-faced mage of earlier and seemed about to say something in the sudden and startling silence, but evidently decided against it. Next moment she had turned and was looking at him, combined wariness and uncertainty, and maybe hope, in her expression. For the barest second, he could see white flame - which had filled her eyes in the struggle with the harpies - flare and diminish. The blue they left behind was commonplace. Her hair, falling in disheveled brown tendrils around a somewhat pale face, was commonplace. Idiot gods. To expect greatness of a peasant girl. He could run her through that instant, and then what would be left of the gods' precious Chosen?

His captain was occupied in freeing himself, and Jediron saw her start toward him, one hand outheld. Her voice was suitably wary when she offered, "I'm...my name's Merrin." At least she wasn't naive enough to assume he would immediately fall at her feet in gratitude. Hah.

Meeting his eyes was enough to see the disgust there. Adding to it gave him a perverse amount of pleasure. "You're the Chosen of the Gods." The last word left his lips like a curse, and when she averted her gaze he raised himself off the stone and spat eloquently at her feet.

Silence when he turned his back, and silence as she walked away.



Merrin worked to control her sudden spurt of anger. She had saved their lives! All their lives! Idiotic, she thought bitterly, to even hope for gratitude. Bitterness made her walk past the rest of the Meiltha extricating themselves without a second glance. Had Kendath been so different than that? Not really, she realized with a start. Not really, at first.

He was now. Merrin looked up to meet his eyes, and exhale all the tense anxiety she'd been holding in. Somehow her feelings cringed from expressing themselves beyond a tentative, "Glad you're all right."

_________________

When the white fire first roared around the volcano, Kendath thought nothing less than a star raining down from the skies and exploding in their midst. The light blinded him so that it easily could have been such. A few blinks still found him sightless, with tiny stars dancing in his vision, when a slight, all too familiar figure darted in from virtually nowhere, shrieking something incoherent and hurling white fire from her hand.

Never had Kendath been so glad to see anyone in his life.

Then a smaller figure - Kiril - was at his side, fumbling with the chains, and before his dazed mind could register it all with the exploding stars and heat and delightful screams like keening banshees, he was free to stumble around the ledge with half the coordination of a drunken sailor... until Kiril slammed into him from behind - slammed him into the right direction, really, and likely saved his life. He managed an awkward dive as more fire roared past his ears to fully impact the spot he'd occupied a millisecond before. Small wonder - that was real fire, not white fire, and there stood Garthag happily attempting to blow up the ledge.

The stairs in their vertiginous glory beckoned a few paces away, and Kendath stumbled towards them, pausing to reflexively snap up a dagger at another dark-armored figure stumbling his way. Captain Tonar growled, deflected the dagger with one of his own, and hung back to rally his men. Flames and the crowded ledge had claimed half their number and was just claiming another as he evaded a death by burning, only to stumble on the precipice and greet a swift, thousand-foot drop.

And then it was over. The silence was as earsplitting in its oppression as were the screams, and for a moment Kendath could only slump back against the sheer cliff face behind him, catch his breath, and fight to clear his swimming vision. He swiped the back of his hand across his brow, and it wasn't until his hair stuck to his forehead did he notice the gashes where the shackles had bitten into his wrists.

Smoke veiled the darkness, dimming the inky velvet with dusty gray, and from the haze staggered a Merrin whose adrenaline supply looked sadly depleted. Somehow she managed a tilted chin as she passed the gathered Meiltha and came to stand before Kendath. Her voice contrasted oddly with her taut jaw. "Glad you're all right."

Kendath shook his head. Hypocrite. Through her shredded sleeves, gashes peppering her arms glared crimson in what little moonlight meandered through the haze. She looked none too steady on her feet - another bite of frigid wind swirling around the volcano could have knocked her over. A ghost of white flame flared in her eyes, then flickered out like the sun's last valiant shine before a passing of clouds. He recalled with vivid clarity their former power, their flares of alabaster bursting against the sirens, reducing them to charred spots on the stone, annihilating without a drop of the mercy for which the gods were so renowned.... What would any mediocre priest, any wizard, any Meiltha lord give for power of this magnitude? Looking at her weary face now, he couldn't help but recall the other Merrin. A strange feeling stole over him, rendering him aphasic. A feeling he'd never associated with Merrin before.

Raucous cries split the night air above them. Winged shadows flitted like phantoms overhead. Suddenly Commander Tonar shouted, "Get down!"

Talons glinted, and almost belatedly vulture-like birds flashed in Kendath's mind, before one of them swooped and narrowly missed taking off his head. It banked with impossible agility for a creature so huge, its wings rushing with a whoosh of air over his head, and went straight to the next target... a Meiltha soldier not quite as fortunate. A human scream, a raptorial shriek, a spurt of blood that showered upon the horrified onlookers, and the roc was bearing its freshly caught prey into the skies, where its fellows scented the blood and converged.

It didn't take long for them to notice the other morsels of tender skin and soft limbs, most defenseless and all exhausted, sitting on the ledge. What a wonderful feast.

"I think we should go," observed Kendath, the paragon of intelligent reasoning. Readying a dagger for all the good it might do, he staggered toward the stairs just as a dozen moderately angry and very hungry rocs dove with the intention of eating him.

_________________

Merrin stumbled once in sudden - and not entirely unexpected - weariness. Too much...the healing she'd forced out that afternoon, and now the exhausting effort of driving off the bloodthirsty sirens. It was too reminiscent of a temple filled with chanting shadowers, and then blackness closing in on her mind after an explosion of white. Must be more careful.

At that moment she wanted nothing more than to crawl into a hole and sleep for the next three days, but the sudden raucous cry of a predatory bird, and a glance skyward, indicated the next life-threatening situation. Merrin could have laughed, though without mirth, at their persistant reoccurence. As it was she was too drained to even respond to Kendath's somewhat evident observation.

There were several tense moments during the long trip back down the rude-cut stairs. The rocs were by no means unintelligent, and they recognized prey escaping them. The Meiltha, however, without their weapons, proved easier targets, and by the time the end was in sight the attacks had diminished. The sky was also beginning to lighten to just the very barest tint of dark azure rather than black.

Kendath and Jhoran were scraped and bloody from their bewitched journey up the volcano, and Kiril was nearly as exhausted as Merrin - though she had hardly the energy to notice or care about her many small injuries as well. Despite the anxiety Merrin couldn't help but feel about the other two, she suspected that to evince any more gods-given power might just render her senseless - an experience she'd had quite enough of lately. For a brief moment bitterness welled up. She'd been hale enough before, and if Garthag could have neatly destroyed the sirens with a well-placed fireball all this time, what need had there been for her to drain herself as she had?

What had once been difficult, but now almost seemed habit, was to coax herself into facing the next course of action. Merrin resisted the urge to drop to her knees and swear never to climb a mountain again, and turned to scan the skies warily. No rocs. Wasn't to say they wouldn't return, though, or more sirens - the thought spurred her on. They must get off the island. "Right," she found herself saying breathlessly, turning to face first Kendath and then scanning Jhoran with newfound curiousity. Who - ?

"I'm sorry...I'm Merrin," she introduced dully, too tired to examine the spark of recognition he lit in her. If only Kendath...no! First during the Lost Battle, and then once again after her terrifying experience in the Meiltha camp, she'd been able to let grief and fear slip away in his embrace, but she couldn't let herself hope for it now. Especially after - and there was another train of thought not worth pursuing. She forced herself back onto the first one. "We need to get out of here. Sirens could come back, or, or those birds." Unwillingly, she found her thoughts fastening on Kendath again. She'd thought he was dead...never, ever, did Merrin want to feel that again. Why did his unresponsiveness only make her feel that more acutely?

The scene decided to blur suddenly, and twist at a strange angle before Merrin's eyes. She blinked hastily, and it fled, but she was tired. Gods, tired couldn't begin to express her wish to collapse somewhere. Kendath and...whoever he was...looked worn by their experience as well. Surely rest could do them all some good? "Maybe...maybe we should camp, first, though," she amended tentatively.

_________________

"The little Chosen has put herself in charge," Captain Tonar sneered, but wisely saw fit to shut up when Kendath's icy glare impaled him. Only three of his men had survived the ordeal, and one of them was draped, semi-conscious, over the shoulders of his fellows. After said Chosen's display of power, even he was pragmatic enough to know that ripping her to shreds was not the best course of action. Kendath could almost see the wheels turning in Tonar's head - a transient alliance, no more, enough to get them off this wretched island. He, of course, knew how those went. Friends for a day, perhaps two, then ah! Apologies, friends, did I just stab you? It wasn't as though Kendath hadn't been guilty of the same accident in his own auspicious Meiltha career.

Any other day he would have thought more of it, perhaps would have calculated Tonar's usefulness to the party before considering a death sentence, but today he simply lacked the willpower. A tinge of dark azure teasing in the east, no more, was apparently all they'd get out of the sunrise. The perpetual pall seemed to suck its resolve dry, reducing it to tiny tricklings of yellow that little brightened the shadows pooling around the trees.

None of his companions looked too energetic, and his own fatigue welcomed Merrin's suggestion. But despite his bruised arms and aching knees crying for rest, Kendath found strangely that he didn't want to make camp. Every fiber of his mind was awake, buzzing with fear, protesting against it. He froze, his hand straying to his weapons belt, his other hand raising for quiet. "Do you feel that..."

Something had changed about the island since the sirens' downfall. The same mist cloaked the ground and hung over the trees' skeletal fingers. But the silence was different somehow. Where the silence of before had merely been that - a lack of sound - now it seemed to... throb. Throb and shift, like the heart of some great beast crouching in wait. It drummed subtly, silently, through the entire isle, almost as though the earth itself were alive and yawning with a great black maw.

"We have to get off this island," he croaked, then moistened his throat and tried again. "Something's out there - waiting - can't you feel it - " Kiril uttered a small moan, and he glanced sharply at her. "Where's your uncle?"

"He fell!" she stammered, hiccuping and pressing close to Merrin and gazing pleadingly up at her. "I think he's still on the beach. We have to find him!"

Kendath grunted. "Which way? I don't remember where - "

"We're not finding anyone," interjected a scowling Captain Tonar. "You're right, this place is cursed. The girl's uncle might not even be alive. It's folly to send the entire unit after him, but it's more foolish to split up. One of my men is injured, and we're all flagging. I say we make rest for a few hours and take stock of our wounds." He glanced up at the gaunt branches stretching overhead and couldn't repress a shudder. "But out of these damned trees. I feel like they have eyes."

_________________

Merrin put a reassuring arm around Kiril's shoulders, pulling her close. "We are not leaving anyone behind," she put in pointedly. Meeting the scowling Captain Tonar's eyes levelly just as he seemed inclined to exhaustively list why that was rank foolishness and why Merrin was an idiot, she added as coldly as she could manage, "You'll excuse me if I say that your opinion carries very little weight." Considering how I just saved your life, and if you get off this island alive, it'll be because of me, and -

Unreasoning anger welled up - but how could she not have expected this? What, had she thought they would fall at her feet in gratitude? No, she hadn't thought at all in that flurry of frenzied action, only thought that Meiltha or no, nobody deserved to die like that. It was still true, but far harder to convince herself now that they were standing before her spouting noxious jibes and clearly no more grateful to her than she was inclined to care about their opinions.

Wouldn't help to exchange petty insults. They needed to find Pundy and get out of this accursed place. A breath of wind stirred the brittle branches above, sounding like a rattle of bones, and Merrin shuddered in spite of herself. "Kiril," she said, trying to mask the urgency in her words, "if we went back to the place we came ashore, could you show us from there where your uncle fell?"

Kiril sniffed valiantly, and responded with a tremulous, "I - I think so - maybe?"

Merrin rapidly tried to assimilate their options. She found herself agreeing with Tonar - folly to split up, especially since she didn't trust the Meiltha not to follow them and make good use of a few well-aimed daggers. She wanted to bring them along even less, but it was the only viable course of action. One thing, however, needed clearing up before they went any further.

Gently detaching Kiril, Merrin folded her arms and came to stand face-to-face with the less than impressed Captain Tonar. "I saved your life," she said evenly, willing her voice not to wobble with fatigue. "Therefore if you have any desire at all to remain with us, we will be acting upon my decisions." If at all possible, his scowl deepened. His next words were, predictably, a sneer. "How old are you, twelve? My men and I - "

"I am nineteen." As if that was marginally more impressive. Merrin fixed his glare with one of her own, holding it despite having to tilt her head in order to meet his eyes. "You saw, up there, what I am capable of."

An eyebrow arched in skepticism. "All I saw - "

Something snapped within Merrin, and for a split second she wanted very much to strike him. Her saber came out with a ring of steel. "Deny it a thousand times over," she snapped, "It makes the fact no less true. I am the Chosen of the Gods. I saved your life, and if you had even the smallest amount of - of - of decency, you'd be grateful!" On the last word her voice broke and Merrin stopped, realizing she was quivering with rage. He looked strangely startled.

She turned and stalked away, sheathing her rapier with one hand and slipping the other into Kiril's. Speaking to the Meiltha in general, she turned back once to deliver icily, "We are going to find Pundy, and if you feel at all inclined to follow - I will be giving the orders."

As soon as she turned her back Merrin had to clench her free hand around the hilt of her saber to hide its trembling.

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Kendath snapped shut his slack jaw and caught himself before yes, Commander could quite escape his mouth. He glanced from Merrin, to the equally startled Captain Tonar, then back to Merrin's retreating back. Somehow he couldn't bring himself to call after her, ask if she knew where she was going. Memories of another female he'd once known - spitfire, High Meiltha, and all - sprang to mind in stark contrast yet shocking similarity.

Shaking his head, he started after her.

It turned out she did have a sense of direction after all. The mist-choked trees receded to a familiar craggy promontory, smashed by breakers and pummeled by howling wind. A fine veil of seaspray showered them as they neared the edge, making Kendath wipe his brow and blink away salt. Shading his eyes, he squinted into the vast expanse of gray, hoping against hope for something that interrupted its perfect monotony, preferrably with bloated sails and an intact hull. Nothing. A fool's hope. Even if a ship's captain could see the isle at all, cloaked in mist as it was, no one would have cause or reason to venture near the jagged rocks. And then there was the scaled nightmare, the serpentine leviathan patrolling these waters...

"I don't see him," Kiril said, her voice tinny and lost in the roar. Unlike Kendath, she stood biting her lip and facing down the coast, scanning the shoreline for any break in the stone, any soft lump that might signal Pundy's inert form. When she looked back toward Merrin, tears drowned her sea-green eyes. "I - I don't see him... He tripped over a rock. There were lots of them. Lots of - lots of rocks."

"Then what are we looking around here for," Kendath grumbled. He started down the shore, keeping a sharp eye for "lots of rocks," but not before shooting Captain Tonar and company another jovial glare. "Helpful grunts you are. You're soldiers. Fan out. Get in formation. All men to the perimeter. You're embarassing the Bloodstone Court."

Tonar's own glare was as well rehearsed as his scowl. He pinned the man opposite with figurative needles for a few seconds, then narrowed his eyes and spat, "I know you. You're that filthy traitor. Chosen's little pet. Are the gods treating you well?"

"Is the Chosen still alive?"

"Chosen's little pet," the Meiltha muttered again, but Kendath ignored him. Kiril had caught sight of something and was hurtling around the curvature of the promontory as fast as her little legs could carry her - which, to his annoyance, was remarkably fast. Cursing under his breath, he took off after her. He caught up with her a half mile down the shoreline, where the palisades leveled off to the rocky beach they'd ascended the day before, having battled their way out of the cove. In the cove itself, the tide had receded, leaving the talus, formerly pounded by white-capped breakers, bare and moist with algae. Kiril was yelling and pointing at something within the cove. Shaking his ragged hair out of his eyes, Kendath followed her finger... around the cliff...

There was the forbidding aperture to the grotto in which the sea dragon had first deposited them. And there, balanced on the rocks right in front of it, arms waving, was Pundy.

Before Kendath had time to wonder what in all abyss the man was doing down there, and certainly before the Meiltha with their injured comrade could catch up, Kiril was already scrambling down the beach and plunging into the waves to work her way toward the cove. As Merrin rushed to follow, however, he caught her arm. He coughed. "Are you... uh... are you all right? Maybe you should wait here while I go..."

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It took Merrin a moment to assimilate what he was inquiring, watching Kiril with all the frowning anxiety of a miniature mother - ironic, really, as in all likelihood she was less than a decade older. When she did, it was with a shrug and a half-smile; and a tentative touch on the raw gashes encircling one of his wrists. "You're no better than me."

She certainly had no desire to keep company with the sullen, less-than-enthusiastic Meiltha, especially considering their captain's very evident prejudice and the inevitable fact that, even with her previous outburst, she wanted to avoid him as much as humanly possible. A glance over her shoulder revealed that the soldiers were trudging through rocks, apparently muttering among themselves rather than doing anything of use. She caught a distinct scowl on Tonar's already forbidding face just before her hair obscured the view, whipped in front of her eyes by the salt-scented wind. Merrin gathered it in one hand, glimpsing as she turned back the lone Renegade standing by himself. Where had she seen him before?

Eying Kiril's progress through the crashing waves, she beckoned with a waves of her hand for Kendath to follow and stepped into the surf herself. Water sloshed into her boots again. Merrin fell into step beside him, and after a moment of hurriedly picking their way through the miniature breakers, she glanced up. "Who is he? He's not...I mean, he reminds me of Adanil."

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Before plunging, Kendath stripped off both his leather armor, leaving the dirtied white tunic and breeches underneath, and the tattered cloak that would hardly keep him warm anyway. He stood there for a while, inhaling deeply and letting the wind whip through his shirt, before plunging into the waist-high waves after the bobbing girl, who, fortunately for their sanity, was a strong swimmer.

The surf fought him as he waded, boots slipping on the mud and arms aching from holding his weapons belt aloft. Unexpectedly it jerked at his knees, pulling him under however hard he battled to keep his nose above the water, until in frustration he questioned his efforts at keeping his falchion dry. He kept to the cliff wall, stumbling over the rocks whenever he could, and it was halfway into the cove and the umpteenth time the breakers had pulled him under when Merrin voiced her question. Vigorously flapping his head like a dog shaking its fur, he resurfaced with a gasp just in time to hear it. They were nearing the end of the cove, where the breakers crashed less vehemently and the water level was low enough for him to sling his weapons belt over his shoulder. It took him a while to comprehend her words, and when he did, he glanced back over his shoulder at Jhoran, fighting the waves a small distance behind.

"He has the scimitar," he said quietly, close to Merrin's ear so to be heard over the howling wind, smashing the cliffs and chilling him to the marrow. He clamped down on his jaw to still his chattering teeth and continued, "Adanil's scimitar, I mean. They're not that common, are they? But we did drop Adanil off with the Renegades." He shrugged, and further conversation was deferred by Kiril scrambling onto the talus and straight into Uncle Pumfoot's arms.

Pundy returned the embrace only briefly. His face, pale and slick with either sea spray or perspiration, stared wide-eyed over Kiril's shoulder. "You... lass... alive? Bonny, thought I'd never see you again...." He chewed his lip and glanced back toward the aperture. "There's... there's something in there. Not the sea serpent. But it smells... and it moves..."

Still coughing brine through his nose, Kendath nodded breathlessly and finished squeezing the water out of his tunic. He worked his trembling fingers into strapped his weapons belt back on. "Right. Lovely. In we go then. Stay out here with the girl. If we die, try to get off the island. Oh, and watch out for Meiltha on the beach." Leaving Pundy and Kiril on that cheerful note, he glanced at Merrin and ducked into the grotto.

Indeed, the first thing that struck him was the smell. Reminiscent of fish left out too long in the sun, it choked the air and only worsened as they got deeper into the cave. He kept to the slick walls, sloshing as little as possible, and paused a few steps in, letting his vision adjust to the darkness and straining his ears. Behind him, the muted crash of breakers. Beside him, the churning of water as it rushed through the cave mouth. Somewhere ahead, the steady drip-drip of water. The grotto, its walls glistening like black tar, narrowed to a tunnel and curved out of sight.

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Merrin lingered nervously near the entrance, unwilling to venture much further in. "It's not bothering us, whatever it is," she said doubtfully, attempting to listen past the moist echoes of wind fluttering around the entrance. "Kendath - we could just go back to the beach and leave it alone - "

He didn't appear to be stopping. With one last distinctly uneasy glance around at the unassuming panorama of wind-tossed waves and grey sky, Merrin followed him into the dim interior of the cave, wrapping her arms around herself as if to ward off the encroaching chill. A few inches of water sloshed beneath her boots, growing marginally deeper as they ventured further in, but the smell grew far faster. It did very little for Merrin's anxiety.

A corner turned sharply and she convulsively caught at his sleeve, sucking in her breath. Her other hand flew reflexively to the hilt of her saber. A tentacle, ornamented thickly with slightly pulsing suckers, extended out of the dimness with an eerie fluorescent glow. "Let's go," pleaded Merrin, now violently of the opinion that to leave well enough alone was a very wise thing to do. "It's - "

The sinister appendage contracted suddenly, pulling in on itself. Seconds later a breath of foul wind blew out of the darkness. Merrin's grip tightened on Kendath's sleeve.

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Through enshrouding haze over his mind, Jhoran realized a very crucial detail as they fled the ledge, the sirens, and the rocs. They were fleeing with the remaining Meiltha. The venerable Captain Tonar among them. That being the same Captain who had had such a lovely discussion with him earlier. He winced, and gripped his scimitar hilt with his left hand, his right arm hanging limp and broken from the part in the discussion when they had brought out several rods that wear specially made for such events.

Following Merrin, Kendath, and the little girl, Jhoran kept a wary eye on the four Meiltha. Their party of eight was less than unified, and he was afraid that the Meiltha were better off--he and Kendath were both in rather bad physical shape, and Merrin looked like she hadn't slept in a week. Would the Meiltha try anything? It was certainly worthy of being concerned about.

He limped along at the rear of the group, where he could keep an eye on the Meiltha; though what he would do if they attempted something was something that he would have to decide whenever they tried. Tonar kept shooting glares at him, doubtless angry at having to work with his former prisoner in order to survive.

At last, however, they passed out of the wooded area, and onto...desolation. It had to be the most forlorn and uninviting beach that he had ever seen. Rocks, high waves, and choppy waters. And sea dragons. That last bit, though, wouldn't be a problem unless they went into deeper water, hopefully.

The little girl ran off, and Kendath ran after her. Since they were trying to stay together, everyone else headed that direction as well.

A sound of trepidation escaped Jhoran's lips as he saw Kendath, Merrin, and the little girl wading through the water to reach a group of rocks where stood a man. There was very little choice except to follow them.

The crashing waves beat against his side, impacting on bruised ribs and his broken arm, and on injuries he didn't even know he had. The treacherous current tugged at his feet, and threatened to pull him under, and Jhoran was afraid that if it managed to, he wouldn't be able to break the surface again.

Struggling on and reaching the rocks took almost all of his remaining strength, but he had only time to pant for a few seconds before following Kendath and Merrin inside.

He reached them just as something vanished out of sight. It reminded him of a snake. His sharp intake of air echoed in the enclosed space.

"What was that?" he whispered, while trying to work moisture back into his throat. In his condition, there was no way he could fight at all.

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