Alùn did not hear anything but a deafening resonance with the impact of whatever exploded. 'How warm,' he thought. The heat was suffocating. Strangely enough, other than the warmth and the resonance in his ears, he did not feel anything. He could not think of lifting his head and looking down to his body if he is still in one piece, either. Slowly came the panic, and as the resonance started to fade away, he started (or tried) to shout.
"HEY!"
Nothing. He saw the unmoving silhouette of Aural, lying on his back with a huge broken window glass sunk into his chest.
"Why? Who?"
It was dusty. A beige mist has fallen upon the remains of theTemple, and he could see the foggy sunlight weakly shining on his face. It was almost impossible to breath in. Where was Urnyras? Was she alright? If only he could move-
"Take them away."
Two hands grabbed him by his arm pits in a not-so-gentle manner, lifting him up and dragging him out of the demolished glass-wall of the Temple. He was conscious and responsive, however he did not want anyone to realize that, he kept pretending.
'Damn that resonance,' he thought, slightly frowning. 'If only it could go away... Where is Urnyras? Where-'
"To the lodge. I will be following you."
"As ye wish, Master Volda."
'Who are these?' asked Alùn to himself, as he was being dragged further down an incline. Stone pavements were scratching his kneecaps as he was brushing past them, and his captors were anything but gentle. He clothes were torn apart, yet he has felt that he had no major injuries. As a matter of fact, every passing second and with the waning resonance, he was able to further make sense of everything surrounding him. One thing did not change - he wanted to know how Urnyras Jael was.
There were people on the street peering at Alùn and his captors, and they were dissing the curious folk by telling them that Alùn was a traitor and he was to be executed. They have also threatened several citizens to stay away, or otherwise they would share the same fate. As a typical Caluan behaviour, they were ultimately quite apathetic.
They dragged him for minutes, to where eventually stone pavements yielded to grass. Alùn did not know where they were going, but he knew that this was not the city center anymore. 'Probably a park in one of the suburbs or something,' he thought. 'What will happen to me? Will they kill me? Will I be tortured?'
After mere seconds, they arrived at the doorstep of an old, wooden manor. Alùn's captors, talking in northeastern Caluan accent, were not as easy to figure out the speech as it was any other accent in northwest, but he could understand that this place was referred to as a 'lodge', and they were sort of panicked about the fyllian and Wundhian forces being at their neck. It also seemed that these people were immensely scared of this 'Master Volda', the man who has ordered Alùn to be moved to 'the lodge'.
The captors tied Alùn to a wooden chair with thick warps; as mossy, they were also painfully tight. Alùn still carried on pretending that he was unconscious and tried so hard not to react when he was being tied up.
"So what d'we do?" asked one of the captors to another.
"Wait, right," replied the fat one. "What d'ye expect? You've heard Volda. We wait, then we execute'em appropriately. They want it clean as it is, eh."
"Right," nodded the first one. "I'll smoke some brushweed outside. Keep an eye on him will ye?"
"Make sure yer done by the time Volda arrives," the fat one warned him. "Ye don't want him to make ye swallow the entire thing."
Alùn opened one eye to look at where they exactly stood. They were both at the doorstep, and as the conversation ended the first captor went outside the lodge. Alùn waited until the fat one closed the door behind the other one, and then he opened his second eye; yet still unmoving.
'Let's hope this works,' he thought. Then a word of whisper came out of his mouth: "Djena."*
A soft blast towards the fat captor slowly flew on the air, eventually merging with him. Alùn observed him as his eyes widened, and after for a moment of irresistable shaking, he seemed quite normal.
"Now," Alùn said. "I am entirely under control of my master."
Fat man simultaneously spoke the same words, of course with his own voice.
"It worked," said Alùn. "Great. Now I shall free my master from his bonds immediately."
Then Alùn focused on the fat captor's motives, making him move without his will and ultimately made the captor untie him.
"Now we will pretend as if nothing has happened," said Alùn. "Master will pretend that he is still tied up, and we will call the other one inside, then we will smash his head."
Alùn was awkwardly enjoying the moment. "Hey, this man is waking up!" he whispered, and watched the fat captor shout the things he said to the other one. The smoking captor opened the door and observed inside with one eyebrow raised.
"Why are ye talkin' with that funny accent?"
"It will serve as a good disguise if we get caught," said Alùn, whispering. "I am praticing it, y'know." He intentionally emphasized on the last word in Caluan accent to avoid further suspicion - he did not consider that shift of accents. In any case, the captors weren't that brilliant. "Come on in, we do not want Master Volda to spot you with that shitty weed, seriously."
"Yeah, wha'ever mate," the smoking captor said, after emptying his pipe. "Y'erright."
"Close the door too."
"Why? it's dam hot out there. Y'wanna melt?"
"We can't be seen with this man here. Just do what I say."
"Stop bitchin' me around, will ye?"
"Just do it, for Lyca'nae's sake."
"What the-" the captor looked quite surprised. "Lyca'nae? Since when ye are a Lyca'naen ye filthbag? Are ye a spy?" He drew a small dagger.
"Hold on, hold on, just a habit!" said Alùn, he could not believe how he could do such an obvious mistake. These were Caluan people - a grand portion of the population was of Vinylliga or Dol'sharen belief.
"And how can a devout Dol'sharen like yourself can get into the habit of using such a poisonous phrase?"
Niru Volda walked in by the door, slowly pushing the wooden door of the lodge.
"Are you a spy?"
Alùn admitted to himself that he did not anticipate this. He shut his eyes once more, carrying on to pretend to be unconscious but he could feel he was sweating. Niru Volda smiled.
"Yes? Any explanations?"
"I have one," said the fat, mind-controlled captor. "I have one indeed."
Other captor was looking at him in confusion, and he was sort of intimidated by the arrival of Niru Volda as well. Alùn regathered his focus and drew the captor's shortsword, and at a blink of an eye, he made the fat captor cut off the head of the other captor. Niru Volda stepped back as the head fell down and rolled towards Alùn, stopping at his feet. The expression on the face was utterly disturbing. The body, too, after a second or two, fell down. An immense amount of blood was gushing forth - in ten to twenty seconds, there was a blood pond.
Niru Volda did not react for the same duration. He simply looked down to the body and watched the blood squirt from the veins, how the body kept shaking until all the nerve system shut down. When eventually the body started to tremble frantically, he looked up to heavily breating fat man.
"Nevertheless, then, you are a traitor."
"Let me correct you, Volda," said Alùn - this time himself. "You are the traitor." He stood up from the chair, throwing the warps to the edge of the room they're in.
"Attack."
The fat man attacked Niru Volda with a burning rage, Alùn continued to chant spells not to lose the mind-control over this weak-minded, fat Caluan peon. Periodically he sent offensive Ùrda magic in order to harm him. All of a sudden, Niru Volda opened the lodge door and ran out to the front garden.
"Do not approach!" he growled. "Do not approach, or I shall kill your fylla friend!"
Alùn slowly walked out, commanding the fat man to walk out with him, too. There were at least thirty man outside, which apparently waited there intentionally for some reason. Niru Volda was holding Urnyras Jael in front of him, with a dagger at her neck. She seemed under the effect of some sort of chant, she looked as good as dead.
Unexpectedly for Niru Volda and his men, Alùn sent a fiery ray towards the mind-controlled fat man, who was right in front of the lodge. As he removed the mind-control from him, all thirty men of Niru Volda and himself watched the fat man die burning, screaming in an agonizing, torturing pain. Eventually, his screams disappeared. As he burned, the wooden lodge caught fire and started burning too.
For the Caluan traitors, it was as if time stopped. Some of them moaned in discomfort, but Niru Volda had no intentions of showing any sign of fear.
"So, you show off slaying worthless peons," said Niru Volda. "Is this all you got?"
"I need nobody to deal with your pitifulness," Alùn said in fury. "Leave the girl alone."
"Oh really?" Niru Volda said. "I suspect you are forgetting who I am, Alùn of Rolinbragh. I suspect you are forgetting that you and I are not so different in terms of being outcasts."
"The reason I've left the Disciples were not even close to yours in terms of ignobility," Alùn shouted. "You are a betrayer - a natural one - and a betrayer who got away with his treachery. You deserve to be dead, put aside being a Bannerlord. You deserve to die more than anyone."
"I fear I see nobody in front of me with such high capabilities of killing me," Niru Volda smiled slightly. "I will gladly gut you and anyone who dares to set foot to this city - my city."
"Leave the girl alone, she has nothing to do with any of this!" Alùn was clenching his teeth and fists now. He lifted his left arm, and shortly after appeared a gleaming sword of energy, napthe halùon, flowing through the conjured blade. Meanwhile, he was continuously attempting to make a mind-link with Urnyras Jael to see if she's alright. 'Don't worry,' he was telling her. 'Don't worry, you're fine. You will be fine.'
Yet, she seemed to be quite plainly unconscious.
"Advanced Ùrda, I see," laughed Niru Volda, pointing at the sword. "Pity a man like you will die soon like a mongrel. I'd like to fight you, then, as you attempted to fight me. In fact, I have someone I could use."
"What? No, no... Not her..."
Suddenly, Niru Volda casted a spell** on Urnyras Jael. She momentarily opened her eyes wide, which were gleaming with a bright blue light. 'Dark Ùrda,' Alùn thought. 'No... no, this is worse than the worst torture... Jael...'
Urnyras Jael unsheathed her daggers and emotionlessly marched towards Alùn. Her armor was torn apart and her breasts and shoulders were visible, and with all the cuts all over her upper torso, she looked like a savage woman who was about to hunt a wild lynx with her bare hands. Evidently, she growled.
"Wake her up, you motherless scum!" cried Alùn, burning in hatred with sparkling energies around his body. His body and soul were pumped up, and he's felt that should he engage in battle, he'd slay an entire army in his frenzy.
"Kill him."
*Djena: A mind-control spell. Caster takes control over the targeted humanoid.
**Djena Xaroth: A mind-controling torture method. This spell is forbidden to use for Ùrda-wielders and is among the shunned spells. After the spell wanes (in which, this is a rare occasion since the target usually dies eventually) target is known to be psychologically instable at times for a considerable period.
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