A short Tale of V'ana the Mad.

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Si'anelle of Avelorn
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A short Tale of V'ana the Mad.

#1 Post by Si'anelle of Avelorn »

V'ana is a most strange Elf-child and also the most demanding and difficult for me to scriven her adventures.

A lesson upon the field of the Dead.

'It is only the crows that do benefit from war.' A hunched shape within the tatters of her black cloak Wormwind raised a thin and bony hand and swept it in an arc that described the whole battlefield. Shaking her head she chuckled in her dry old woman's voice before she hoiked and spat.
'Come child,' she said without looking back as she leaned heavily upon her staff and began to pick her way down the grassy slope. Only instead of doing as she had been told V'ana stayed where she was, crouched close against the moist and dewy earth, with the long grass stems blowing all about her in the restless wind.
'Death stink,' hissed the voices in her head, 'can you smell it? - like it eh? - want to go down there with the maggots and the crows? - that meat's too shit-rotten even for filth like you.'
'I can smell it,' was her soft reply as she wrinkled up her nose, then she slipped two slim and dirty fingers up her nostrils to see if that improved things. It did, but then it was difficult to breath so she withdrew her fingers again; - she was going to have to put up with the smell whether she wanted to or not. Narrowing up her gaze she scanned the scarred and muddy field seeing here and there lost spirits of the dead still aimlessly wandering among the bloated corpses as if they could not understand that they were no longer alive. She wondered if she should tell them that they were dead, then spirits often were stupid things that thought they knew the truth when they knew nothing of the sort.
'If you are so clever, why are you dead?' she whispered to them and grinned before she spat into the grass to warn them to stay away.

'Child.' Wormwind had turned about to face her, one thin hand raised in invitation, the other gripped tight about her staff. Slowly V'ana stood up, the muscles in her limbs quivering and tense. If she was to run now Wormwind could not catch her; - softly she growled deep in her throat and bared her teeth.
'I thought that you were hungry for knowledge Child,' said Wormwind to her.
'Not this.' She sharply shook her head and spat again.
'Turn your back on me Child and I will not invite you for a second time.'
'By the god I do not care,' she suddenly shrieked at her, then had to grip at her head with both her hands because the voices inside it were mercilessly mocking her.
'And what god is that Child?' Wormwind's face was hidden inside the hood of her cloak, but V'ana could still tell that she was silently laughing at her.
'Any god I choose,' she hissed as she darted down close against the dampness of the earth and tore two fistfuls of grass roots and clay free with both her hands.
'Do not toy with me Child,' whispered Wormwind her voice carrying on the breeze as she raised up her staff in her hand. 'Maggots may yet taste of your flesh.'
O how she laughed at that as she worked the clay into shape; - and then kissed her little clayman's mouth before whispering his name to him.
'Nagash .....'

Wormwind's howl of fury swept down upon her like to a stormwind, tumbling over backwards V'ana sprang away walking on her hands as a black spear of iron plunged quivering into the ground where she had been squatting but a moment before.
'How dare you mock me!' screamed Wormwind at her. 'Insane wretch; - I spent long centuries in the earning of my powers; - not like you, whom by the whim of the gods, was given your knowledge in an instant.' Still covered entirely by her black and tattered cloak Wormwind slowly straightened to stand more tall and upright. 'Then it is a truth known within all the planes that the gods wounded your mind for you Child so that you would not ever be a threat to them.'
Flopping over backwards to lie in the grass she told the sky, 'The gods obey me.'
'Only to amuse themselves Child; - it is like to the festivals where children are made king for the day and all at court must obey their every command.'

Pushing herself up off the ground V'ana told her, 'The dead should stay dead.'
'Advice gifted to me by the mad,' replied Wormwind as she raised her hands to tug back her hood. A pair of smouldering red eyes set in a narrow face as fine and white as porcelain raked across her before Wormwind turned her back on her.
'I may not be both mad and dead,' said V'ana with a shrug as she walked down the slope to stand beside Wormwind, 'therefore any advice I give you will be from the Mad and not the Dead.'
'One may learn from the Dead; - however one does not take advice from them.' A sidelong glance and then she smiled displaying her sharp white teeth, 'And also I do not take advice from the Mad; - and one may learn not one thing that is of worth from them either.'
'I still prefer to be Mad,' Wandering further down the slope to where the stink of rotting flesh rising from the battlefield was almost unbearable she flung her hands up and shouted a name into the darkening sky, then listened as a new voice spoke inside her head. Drawing in a breath she then began to chant aloud in the ancient tongue of great Khemri, and all across that wide acreage of carrion dead there were stirs of movement as fleshless fingers tightened upon the hilt of weapons as the Dead began to rise up from the bloodsoaked ground.
'The Invocation of Nagash, - I thought that the text of it was lost,' softly whispered Wormwind behind her as her thin pale fingers fell to lightly rest upon her naked shoulders while great and terrible power shimmered all about them, crackling out across the battlefield.
'Yes I suppose it is lost,' said V'ana as she carelessly abandoned the invocation when it was but three fifths done and began to pluck wildflowers from among the grass.
'NO!' Wormwind blundered past her one hand flung out as the whole host of three hundred or more bloated and stinking corpses slumped to the ground and lay still. 'NOoooo!'
'Your turn now,' grinned V'ana as she turned to show Wormwind her pretty bunch of flowers as the necromancer fell to her knees and hunched over holding her head in her hands. She shrugged, Wormwind didn't seem to want to look at her flowers at the moment, - but there were still a whole lot more growing amongst the grass, - perhaps when she had picked some more of them Wormwind might want to look at her nice flowers then ..............

A Tale of V'ana the Mad. November 2001.
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