Chapter 7

The Battle

Asiara floated in darkness for quite some time. There was no pain, though. There was no awareness. She was nothing. Then, there was sensation. An unusual sensation. Lips against her own, but not in a kiss. Pressure. Building. Convulsion.

Awareness raced back as Asiara felt herself coughing uncontrollably. As she did so, the water cleared out of her lungs, and she took several deep, longing breaths of cool air. For several moments, she did nothing but focus on gasping air into her body, trying to recover even as she tried to make sense of what had happened, and what was happening now.

She was cold and wet, she realized – the night air was chilling her. And her head was lying in someone's lap now. She heard a voice – a soft, feminine voice. "It's all right, my dear. I almost waited too long, but you'll thank me later."

Asiara had no idea what that meant. Struggling to open her eyes, she peered up at the woman who was now stroking her face, pulling the wet curls of her hair from her cheek. As she slowly managed to get her eyes to focus, she saw the woman's face, framed in the bright moonlight as though she were an angel.

An angel with long, auburn hair.

Asiara was too weak to take action – she was too weak to move at all. But she did manage to croak out, "you..." Even in Asiara's own mind it wasn't clear if that single word were a question or a challenge. The woman simply looked down at her with soft, gentle eyes, and continued to stroke her face.

Still feeling woozy from all that just happened, Asiara let her eyes slip closed as she tried to recover. The cold was affecting her now, and she could feel herself shivering. She was also now aware that, other than her head, which was resting in the woman's lap, her body was lying on wet, sandy soil. Fighting to open her eyes, she was able to make out her surroundings a bit. She was lying at the bottom of the lake, only now, the lake was empty of water. Asiara and her mysterious caretaker were simply in a large, damp crater in the midst of the dark forest.

"Relax, my dear," the woman said, "you've been through quite a lot this evening. Just rest, Dathaka's power will protect you from the cold."

"What..." Asiara still couldn't speak more than one word at a time.

"All will be revealed in due time. For now, just focus on restoring your strength – you're going to need it very soon."

With that, the woman supported Asiara's head as she slipped her legs out from under it. Now kneeling over her, the auburn haired woman looked down at Asiara for several quiet moments before leaning down and pressing her lips against Asiara's. Slowly, without realizing why, Asiara yielded to the kiss, allowing the woman to slip her tongue into Asiara's mouth, engaging her in a deep and gentle probing of her tongue.

Asiara wasn't sure why, but she felt her heart racing with that kiss. She also felt something else – something familiar. She remembered this woman's tongue from Dathaka's altar, but there was something more to this kiss. But, try as she might, Asiara couldn't place it.

Then, the woman broke the kiss, stood up, and walked out of Asiara's field of vision. She could hear the woman walk out of the empty lake and into the forest, and then she could hear only the rustling of the leaves in the calm, chilling wind.

Still trying to recover, Asiara laid at the bottom of the lake for quite some time, letting the moonlight wash over her. Eventually, she felt strong enough to sit up. She could feel the sand still clinging to her body and her face where it had been lying on the empty lake's floor, but she was too tired to try to brush it off. Instead, she simply turned her head in every direction, taking in her surroundings more completely than she had been able to previously.

The lake didn't look as large as it had before, now that it was empty. Scanning the sandy bottom, she noticed what looked to be several skeletons embedded in the ground. Judging from their size, Asiara was pretty certain that they were all male. Then, a gleam of metal caught her eye at the edge of where the water used to be. Her swords! The scabbard of Phyxilir was catching the moonlight, giving it a radiant brilliance.

The sight seemed to rejuvenate Asiara, and she stood slowly before striding out of the former lake that had almost been, if not her actual death, at least her undoing. Shuddering, both from the cold and from what had nearly happened to her, she reached down for her weapons and strapped them around her waist. She saw her robe lying on the ground, but decided to ignore it. As her strength returned she was finding the cold less and less bothersome, and right now she wanted to feel the breeze – to feel the air that she had almost forsaken – flit across her naked skin.

After looking at the empty lake one last time, she turned and made her way through the forest before emerging back into the hilly countryside that surrounded her camp.

"For now, just focus on restoring your strength – you're going to need it very soon." The words of the auburn haired woman echoed through her mind as a new and horrifying sight entered Asiara's vision. Her camp was burning.

Breaking into a run, she did her best to make sense of what was happening, even though at her current distance she could see very little. Many of the tents were ablaze, and, even from afar, she could hear shouts and the clamor of battle.

As she drew nearer, she could see that the camp was under attack. The Maurial army was upon them!

Pushing thoughts of everything that had happened to her that evening to the back of her mind, Asiara took stock of the situation and quickly tried to plan her strategy. Even though the Maurial army had attacked suddenly in the night, Asiara quickly realized that her forces hadn't been caught completely off guard. Partheon had no doubt feared such an attack, and told her soldiers to prepare for it. "Damn it!" Asiara swore to herself, "How did I not realize the wisdom of Partheon's words this morning?" Of course, she knew the answer, as her sex stirred with the memories of what she had experienced in the past three nights.

Shaking her head, she took in the complete scene in front of her. Other than a few gently rolling hills, the land didn't offer much in the way of strategic elements. The Maurials had a larger force than Asiara had expected, and they had used that to completely surround the camp before attacking. When they had attacked, they had begun with a focused thrust through the middle of the camp in an attempt to cut Asiara's forces in two.

This had only been partially successful, though, as Partheon had anticipated this form of attack. He had instructed his forces to only put up a token resistance, while allowing the initial wave of attackers to make their way deep into the camp. Then, he had attacked their flanks from either side with a large number of soldiers that he had hidden in reserve, using the remaining magic users to attack the foremost enemies, while the other forces would pinch off the attack and prevent retreat.

The result should have been a decisive early victory for the Annol forces, allowing them to form up in a circle of their own, ready to repel the Maurial forces. However, while the pinching maneuver had gone according to plan, the second part of the plan had proven a complete disaster. Ideally, with the Maurial attack force cut off from its own army, the Annol warriors, with the help of the magic users, should have been able to cut down their assailants before reforming to counter the next Maurial assault.

Unfortunately, the remaining attack force was proving harder to kill than Partheon had anticipated. Asiara could see the bright lights that indicated magic blazing in the midst of the combat, but for some reason the Maurial forces didn't seem to diminish. Meanwhile, from her vantage point outside of the melee, Asiara could see that the remaining Maurial army was preparing to attack with its full force. It had already rained fire tipped arrows into the camp, and was about to force the Annols to fight an army descending on them from without while still battling one from within. It would be a swift victory for Asiara's enemies.

Unfortunately for them, Asiara had returned. She could feel the residual powers that Dathaka had left within her surging as she drew her swords and charged into the battle. She knew that if she could break through the circle of Maurial soldiers and reach her camp, she would leave an escape path in her wake. Once through, she would make quick work of whoever was providing so much resistance in the middle of the camp, and then could protect her army's rear as it made its retreat. This would still count as a loss – that was unavoidable now – but it would save what was left of her army, and give them a chance to regroup.

As she met the first wave of Maurial forces, she was careful to move as quickly and quietly as possible. Coming at them from behind, she used her enhanced battle skills to cut down Maurial soldiers at a breathtaking rate. Her swords were blurs of motion as they severed several heads, and both of her blades were dripping with blood in a matter of moments.

Now aware of the threat Asiara posed, the Maurial forces in the surrounding area turned to face her. Asiara looked back at them with a grin on her beautiful face. They had assuredly heard tales of her prowess, but none of them could possibly be prepared for what they saw before them now. Like so many before them, they were clearly taken aback by her slight figure and lithe beauty – even more so because she stood before them completely naked – her sweat covered body glistening in the pale green moonlight.

And if any of them looked closely, they could see that she was also intensely aroused. The power of her climaxes at the lake had given her a brief respite from her sex's hunger, but Dathaka's gifts to Asiara on the battlefield brought with them the cost of an intense and literal blood lust. With every soldier that Asiara slaughtered, her body's desire for climax grew, and even in these early moments of battle, she had already become quite powerfully turned on.

Reveling in the sensation, she plunged further into the army, allowing her blades to continue their dance of terror as they cut through armor, pierced flesh, and dismembered limbs. The Maurial forces, though, did not react as she had expected. Rather than quaking in the face of such a fearsome opponent, they began to gather around her. Whomever their commander was, Asiara was impressed with his or her ability to instill such bravery and confidence in these troops. They quickly formed a circle around her and attacked with a ferocity that, while lacking the divine abilities that Asiara possessed, was impressive nonetheless.

It didn't take long before the sheer number of warriors surrounding and attacking Asiara became overwhelming. Phyxilir and Finisher were moving as quickly as ever, but their motions were becoming less deadly as they were forced to parry more and more attacks from Asiara's enemies. After a few moments, it was all Asiara could do to ward off the many blows aimed at her – and only her newfound abilities gave her the speed and skill to keep herself unscathed in the midst of such a torrent of attacks.

But eventually, not even Dathaka's aid was enough. A particularly intense and swift volley of sword thrusts came at Asiara all at once, and while she was able to block most of them with her swords, one particularly fast, and particularly deadly jab of a sword slipped through her defenses. Asiara looked down in shock to see a long, thin blade embedded deep in her chest, just below her breasts. All of the warriors who had been attacking her stopped as well – all staring at the sight of Asiara impaled on this sword – it's blade embedded within her and protruding from her back.

But the shock that Asiara and her assailants demonstrated was not due to her sudden demise, but by the unexpected result of what should have been a deadly blow. As Asiara stared at the blade, she saw no blood pouring around its edges. Even more astonishing was that she felt no pain. Looking up, she saw the eyes of her attacker as they slowly turned from an expression of glee, to a look of confusion, and then, finally, of fear.

And the fear was well placed for Asiara, feeling no ill effects from the sword sticking through her chest, swiped both her swords at the neck of her attacker, taking his head off in a clean motion. As his limp body fell to the ground, his sword slid out of Asiara and, as it did so, her body seemed to heal immediately. It was as if her body simply flowed back into its usual form, showing no signs of the damage it had just sustained.

By now, the other warriors had recovered, and one brave soldier lunged at Asiara while she was still marveling at what had just happened. Brandishing a large two handed sword, he aimed for one of her bare legs and his sword hit its mark, slicing through her shapely thigh with ease. But rather than cutting through flesh and bone, the sword seemed to move through Asiara as though it were passing through water, and, indeed, Asiara's flesh seemed to flow around the blade, allowing it to pass through her without leaving so much as a scratch.

Suddenly, Asiara understood. The water nymph! She had been trying to bind Asiara to her, to dissolve her physical form and make her a part of the lake. The auburn-haired woman had somehow stopped this from happening, but not before some of the transformation had taken place. As more and more blades penetrated her, Asiara watched in fascination as they all passed through her in the same way that a blade simply passes through water, causing it no harm.

Grinning from ear to ear, she launched herself at her assailants. Now freed of the need to protect herself, she could focus all of her energies on being a two bladed disciple of pure aggression. Feeling blade after blade slide through her body, causing her no pain, she put her own blades to similar use, but with much more devastating results.

And, just as before, every death that she caused was like a soft tongue teasing her most sensitive areas. Her body dripped with sweat, but her sex dripped just as much as her arousal enveloped her, giving her a rush easily as powerful as the thrill of combat.

Struggling to remain focused on more than simply slaughtering the nearest soldiers and feeling the resulting surges of sexual need, Asiara once again started to make her way towards her own beleaguered troops in the middle of the battlefield. Still cutting down Maurial soldiers with an almost half-hearted ease, she looked ahead of her to try to make sense of what was happening. Her army was still struggling to defeat the initial attack force, which seemed odd, especially since she could see that almost every remaining magic user that they had at their disposal was focusing his energies there. Whatever the reason, Asiara was also aware that the Maurial army at large was well aware of her presence, and was now hurrying to make its final assault while the advantage still belonged to them. She had to hurry.

Bursting through their line of warriors, she raced into camp, heading straight for the battle that still raged in its center. When she drew near, she could see the details of the fighting. Sure enough, her force's magic users were concentrated in the area, poring their spells on the Maurials in their midst. But, to Asiara's confusion, their spells seemed to be having little effect.