In the night she had come.
It was yet another city to be consumed by her legions of abominable men and dark creatures. Armies such as this always follow great and terrible evils. For these weak minded things wish only to cause pain and wreak havoc. This place was yet another to be massacred by them so they might fulfill her schemes of domination.
The guards and warriors, few there were, were slaughtered quickly. The fire mystics of the enemy had seared the flesh and melted the armor into the guards of the wall; They had dropped their weapons and writhed on the stone walkways as their bodies failed against the foul pyromancy.
A warrior sorcerer at the gate house, seeing the failing of the defenses, spawned a shadowed bird that had a shrill scream. Swiftly it swooped through the houses, as it cawed and wailed to wake the villagers, until it suddenly disappeared for the last time. Its master at the gatehouse leaned against the parapets and could feel himself drowning from his punctured lungs. With his last strength he carved open his stomach with his violet dagger.
Those who had not been awoken by the bird, were soon awoken by a rumbling blast. It shook each building and had even brought down the walls which had been guarding them. But it tore through the strongest of the enemy and defenders alike. Beast and man caught anywhere near the blast were ripped apart and taken to the next life.
Upon this destruction her dark legions had stopped. For they are only willing to fight when a great power promises pain upon them should they not. Or when the enemy is weaker than them. They now stood confused and shuddered at what might happen to them. Worried this great power was still alive and unsure that the warrior was dead.
Enraged by the hesitation she swooped down among them like a bat and materialized in the middle of the commanders.
"What are you doing?" she hissed. "Attack you insolent fools". Her words were like needles in their heads and they cupped their ears in pain, all except one. A mystic, a thin man, with porcelain skin and blond hair, he was pretty like a woman. She moved upon him and grew to look down upon him and glowered. "Nilis, why are you stopped? The warrior is dead, find the children and kill them."
Nilis pushed a lock from his face, seemingly unbothered. "Yes, the blood mage, I saw. But not the other one. I still feel her. As you do too, of course. But she will be no bother for you I know. So we have already won, as you said we would, my great queen." He smiled admirably at her and gave a curt bow.
She seethed at his words and wanted to tear him limb from limb right then and there. Though she could read all of their feeble minds and his words read true, she still did not trust him. She knew it was false. She knew that he mocked her inability to sense the sorceress, but she needed him still. But once she was gone, so would he be too.
"Of course I can," she spat, "but I don't have time to deal with such lowly matters. Deal with her yourself and I will deal with the children."
Nilis nodded his head. "Yes, Lady Estora. They are the more important threat. I will tend to that lowly sorceress," he said and with that he beckoned to two tall warriors clad in black plate to follow. With the wave of his hand they dissolved into a pool of shadow and reappeared at the edge of where the wall had been.
She watched him furiously and thought of the cruel things she would do to him. She could not remember why she kept him around anymore, but he would not stay much longer. He had been enticing when she had first seen him, because had a familiar beauty and she liked the way he had struggled when she stole pleasure from him. But after some time he no longer cared and even seemed to enjoy it at some points and she hated that. His mystic skills were beyond any other in her army besides her of course. Soon though she wouldn't have need of such sorcerers.
The defiled and unwilling seer had told her as much, but had also told her of her demise. She had been touched and ripped and sewed back together by that outer power. In so doing so she had been infected by a strand of fate. She had spewed out many possibilities before Astora had managed to push her mind's eye on to her actual threads.
For years she talked and for years Estora dissected her unending mind for the answers to her conquest or utter destruction. Slowly, though through caress and torture she managed to make the girl weave the tapestry of her two possible fates. It was complete and so she followed the threads. But always nervously, for if she took one wrong step she would be back to back….
Back where she did not know exactly, but it would be a horrid place and would mean the doom and death of all her power. So she slaughtered and killed all. She knew not the city of where the child would be, but she knew the country. So she invaded with everything she had and left nothing alive, but it came not without resistance.
Their god, not even among the thirteen, proved powerful and cunning. Amongst his chosen warriors he taught them all they knew of blood magic. Horrible destructive blood magic that sought only to destroy. If he would die, so would she. But she had more soldiers and they were stronger, and imbued with her power easily wiped him from his own realm.
Nilis, more useful then than he was now, had carved the weak god from his shoulders with her magic on his blade. Then he fed her his violet blood and she felt strong and confident once more. She could feel the god's power as she ate from him and felt her own sorcery increase, but still felt she should have gotten more. Yet Nilis had defeated him and a god who died from this could only give her so much.
So city after city she butchered all, feeling victory was close. Yet with each city the seer said she was still nearing the end of her thread. The tapestry of her fate was soon to end if she didn't find the child. How this was she did not know. She was enraged and with brutality she pushed the seer for victory. Yet the girl saw nothing but the end.
"You have to find it. I will not die. I will not die! That is all, that is everything. You must find that path," she wailed at the girl for hours between sets of torture.
"Yes mistress," the seer had finally said between sobs as her sockets cried blood from where her eyes had been. "But you can't look at the fate mistress, or the prophecy will fulfill and you will die."
Estora did not like that. To be in the dark went against her instincts, but the seer could not lie to her. Even still though, like Nilis she was suspicious of her, but Nilis was a powerful mystic and this girl was nothing but a slave and what slave would betray a master like her. So she followed the girl's words until it led her to this final city.