The knife reflected light from the candle into her eyes for a moment before she drew it across the man's neck. Blood rushed down his front turning his ridiculous fancy clothes – who did he think he was, a noble? - red and spurting out to catch her in the face. She didn't care. He was already dead as he fell backwards.... No. She sunk the knife into his chest, her eyes were fixed on his face but a hiss of air let her know she'd hit a lung. Good, this would last longer then. She caught him as he began to fall and lowered him to the floor as gently as she could.

“You're going to die a lot slower and in a lot more pain than she did, only seems right.” She told him almost conversationally, still watching his face intently as he coughed and gasped trying in vain to fill his lungs. She almost wished she'd left him able to talk, but no, his face was enough. It expressed the shock, fear and pain just right. She...

“Kyara!” A shout interrupted her train of thought and she looked up from the knife she had been stroking absentmindedly with an irritated frown on her face. She quickly changed it to a smile when she saw the young man running up to her. Aaron was a fairly new addition to the band, and he'd begun trying to impress her soon after he joined. She was still unsure whether it was worth the risk to use his interest to her advantage; he was young, inexperienced, not much of a fighter from what she'd heard, he'd barely made it into the band. It would be a lot of work and risk to get him to the point of being willing to kill his boss for her if it was even possible, and she couldn't see him succeeding where a trained soldier and assassin had both failed. Still, she had failed to come up with anything else in the months following her latest failure so it wouldn't do to burn her bridges with him before she'd reached a decision.

“Doug bet me two gold pieces he could beat me in a fight, want to come watch?” Aaron was grinning eagerly at her. Idiot. Doug was a good fighter and apparently taking part in the old tradition of parting foolish new recruits from more than they could spare.

“Sure, sounds like fun.” She gave him a warm smile and stood up, it would be an opportunity to see if she was completely wasting her time with him at least.

Aaron lead her to where Doug and about ten other men were waiting. They formed a rough circle and Aaron stepped into it after asking Kyara to wish him luck, which she did with forced enthusiasm. One of the men turned to her with a sneer as Aaron and Doug were getting ready, “Come to support your new man? Does he know how the last one ended up?” She spared him a glare then turned her attention back to the fight that was about to start. She had done her best to keep her relationship with Peter as quiet as possible to keep his actions from leading back to her. It had worked enough to stop Rafford suspecting her as being behind the attack, but inevitably some of the men knew about it. At first she had worried about their talk but if it hadn't got Rafford's attention by now, over a year after the attack, there was little danger now.

Aaron was the first to move, throwing a punch that was easily dodged by Doug. The two circled each other for awhile, exchanging blows with no one getting the upper hand. Aaron looked like he was enjoying himself, but Kyara could tell Doug wasn't really trying. Aaron managed to land a punch to Doug's shoulder that made him stagger back a few steps. He whooped and turned away from Doug to wink at Kyara. Doug used his distraction to step in and hit Aaron in the stomach, hard. Aaron dropped to the ground, groaning in pain while the onlookers laughed at him. Kyara turned away in disgust, resisting the urge to throw a knife at him. Useless.

She clenched her fists as she walked away, willing away the magic that surged up in response to her anger. Her mother, Melia, had taught her to control it well, but she was finding it harder and harder these days. Two years of obeying the man who killed her mother in front of her, two years of fake smiles and pretending to agree with every idiotic plan he came up with so that he would believe she was still loyal. Two years of trying to persuade or buy others to carry out her revenge for her, thanks to that cursed spell. Rafford might be a poor leader but he wasn't as useless when it came to his own personal safety. He had hired her mother out of greed for the extra money he could make with a sorcerer's power on his side but he was also afraid of a power he couldn't defend against with sword or armour. So he had hired a wizard to cast a spell that would cause any damage done to him by Melia or Kyara to be done to them as well. It must have cost a fortune but it had saved his life when he had killed Melia for disobeying him. She wanted nothing more than to take her revenge herself, but instead she was reduced to acting through others and she couldn't even get that right. If only she could get the spell removed. Perhaps that should be her next move, pay a wizard to remove the spell. It would require a lot more time to save the money and she didn't like the idea of trusting her life to a wizard, there would be no way of knowing whether it had worked until she put it to the test. Besides, though she refused to admit it to herself, the thought of leaving the band she had been with her whole life and surviving on her own was... intimidating.

Kine had spent a long time wandering the forest. She had recovered from her immediate horror and panic days later, her heart had returned to its normal beat and after a very long time she had stopped shaking and jumping at every sound. However now the guilt had set in, what had she done? She could barely remember the events before her hurried exodus but she knew she had fled in fear and that shamed her to her very soul. What was worse was that she couldn't bring herself to return, she felt too guilty and too terrified of what might happen if she ever went back. Would they still want her to take her place as the Empress of Ruthad? Why would they want her, she would get them all killed, she wouldn't be able to cope, she wasn't strong enough for that. How could she have ever thought she could lead anyone, stupid ignorant foolish little girl. She hated herself so she wept and then she hated herself even more for her weakness. This was not the daughter her Mother or Father had brought her up to be, when had she become so pathetic. Farin had spent a long time snuffing at her and nudging her, worried about how silent and miserable his rider seemed. His fur was think and comforting at night but the dreams wouldn't stop. She would wake up screaming, still feeling the teeth of ghosts long dead embedded in her flesh. She had thought those dreams had stopped long ago, obviously not. In these times she missed Durgan, she missed him a great deal, it wasn't so hard waking up from nightmares when there was someone else there who cared for you... and she abandoned him. Another reason to hate herself she supposed.

Gradually though she had come accustomed to her hermit traveler lifestyle, she found solitude to be peaceful, she was so used to living amongst a hive of people in walls of stone. Now she had the world to escape to, once she had gotten over her agoraphobia that made it feel like she was going to fall into the sky. Eventually though, she decided she needed to start making her way in this new world, knowing she could not return to Ostorthond. She began entering towns and villages, keeping to herself but slowly gaining the confidence to walk amongst other people. She saw shrines and churchs to Morradin in her travels and they always gave her a stab of longing for home but she never approached them, she was too ashamed and she felt too dirty to think she had the right. Other than that though, her charisma and confidence came back to her naturally, being an inherent part of her character. Soon she was taking minor jobs, helping others for a small fee, she was surprised by how apathetic humans could seem to another's plight, Dwarves always being very neighbourly in general. She had found on her travels posters advertising a Mercenary band named the 'Red Iron' which sounded cheesy and not very promising at all but Kine didn't have much options and anyway, who was she to be picky? So she started off to the Capitol of Temerin.

It took a long journey and there were many times when she had to fight her way through bandits or other aggressors. At one point Farin was cornered by a pack of wolves while Kine had left to collect firewood. She had heard his bleets and rushed back to viciously slaughter them all but Farin had already taken quite some damage and so she halted her journey to find somewhere warm and dry to care for him. Another time he had been stolen from her by undesirables wanting a good meal and she had ruthlessly hunted them all down before freeing him just before they were about to eat him. All in all the trip had been quite eventful although she and Farin developed an even deeper and more trusting friendship which helped alot.

They both rode into the Red Iron's camp a few months later, looking quite fearsome and dangerous with their ruggishly torn clothes, bloodstained armour and wide variety of scars. Kine's permanent scowl was also exceedingly daunting to most everyone who laid eyes on her and mercenaries hurried to get out of her way as she entered. She spied a circle of previously laughing men, one of them battered into the mud, she assumed there had been some manner of brawl. On the outskirts of this group there stood an oddly out of place woman, tall and elegant, slightly too graceful for a human but different to the half elves Kine had previously met. She wore light leathers and cloth rather than the battered metal of the other mercenaries so Kine assumed she was some manner of assassin, or perhaps a mage? No she looked too angry for a mage, much to fierce, she was probably an assassin. In any case she rode past and found the tent made for whom she assumed was the leader, hopping from Farin's back and pushing in without knocking. The man was a bear, a massive hulk of muscle and fat, she briefly imagined that he killed all his enemies just by rolling on them. This gave her something to try and not laugh at while the man turned to look at her. He had a dull face which was backed up by his dull mouth, he didn't even ask her for credentials, he just leered at her, made her sign some paper and then gave her a badge of a red hammer. Then he turned his back on her. She exited the tent both annoyed and disgusted and began tending to the packs on Farin's back with irritation.

Kyara stopped to watch as a heavily armoured and very angry looking dwarf rode through the camp on a goat, of all things. There were a few dwarves in the band, but none that looked anywhere near as impressive as this one, and she had never seen one riding a goat before. He looked her way and she noted his lack of a beard with surprise before her eyes travelled down and she realised he was definitely a she. That was interesting. She had never met a female dwarf, one of the dwarves in the band had told her that dwarven women were few in number and rarely left their homeland. What was this one doing here then? Her armour, although it had seen a lot better days, was clearly high quality as was the large black axe on her back. She looked like a real warrior, out of place in this band of children and rejects.

The dwarf dismounted outside Rafford's tent and pushed inside without so much as a knock. Now there was someone who might just have both the strength and temperament to stand up to the idiot leader. Curious, Kyara sat down where she could see the tent and tried to appear like she wasn't watching it. About 20 minutes later, the dwarf stormed back out of the tent looking even angrier than she had going in and led her goat off towards the stables. Kyara briefly considered going after her and introducing herself, but decided against it. Best to let her calm down.

-5 days later-

Kyara crouched in the cover of the trees, watching the road and trying to resist the urge to shift position or rub her cold arms. One of the men behind her coughed loudly and she turned to glare at him. They'd been waiting in the cold for hours and she was as uncomfortable as they were, but they still needed to be quiet and not risk alerting their target of the ambush waiting for them. They were being paid a lot of money to kill the old duke who would soon be travelling down this road, enough that Rafford himself had decided to come. She didn't want to be the focus of his anger if they failed. Kine, who she had been briefly introduced to the day before, stood behind the tree next to her, completely silent. Even Rafford could tell that Kine was more capable than most if not all of the soldiers in the band and she had been put in charge of the 30 men with them on this mission.

The sound of horses pulled her attention back to the road. Finally. She focused on her power and felt its energy fill her, ready to be used. Five armed guards on horseback rounded the corner first, weapons sheathed but alert, scanning the area for danger. The carriage followed after and the men behind her shifted and murmured. She gestured for them to be silent without turning around. She had to get the timing of this just right or they could get away. Ten or so more guards came into sight as she waited, until the carriage was right where she wanted it. She reached out with her power and concentrated on what she wanted, strong gusts of winds blew from each side of the road, pushing against the trees that had already been weakened by the soldiers' axes. Four loud cracks sounded as the trees fell onto the road in front and behind of the carriage. The guards unsheathed their weapons and several were already pointing bows towards the trees, but before they could fire the wind spun around them, forming into a whirlwind that spooked their horses and made their bows useless. Another crack sounded as lightning leapt from her hands to one of the five guards in front struggling to control their terrified horses. The man and his horse collapsed and lay twitching on the ground, the smell of burnt flesh drifting up towards her.

Kine knelt on one knee in the mud and leaves of the forest floor. She didnt pay much mind to the slight stiffness in her limbs, used to this kind of physical hardship. Instead her mind was fully projected and held by the road in front of her and the men around her. She head their breathing, some nervous, others excited and very few of them actually calm and concentrated like they should be. Through the week Kine had gradually been getting more and more angry and repulsed by the horrendous management and training the mercenary band recieved. In all honesty it was the worst leadership she had ever encountered and it caused an itch under her skin to let it continue on as it was. But there was still that clinging fear, that shiver down her spine and sickness in her stomach that the thought or authority gave her. So she let it go and just dragged herself through, hoping what she had seen was simply the worst of it and it would get better in time.

One of the few soldiers under her command who seemed to know what she was doing was Kyara. Kine had only recently properly been introduced but in that short time the Sorceress had shown more propensity for power and control than any of the much older and more experienced men. Well at least there was one reliable person under her command. However for now the ambush seemed to be going off without too much trouble, possibly to do with the men responding to having a real captain for once.So they sat and awaited the first part of their plan to come into play.

Her muscles tensed when she heard the sound of horses, her hand coming up in a fist quickly to silence and still any movement from her inexperienced and over-excited crew. There was a brief shuffle of sound and then a sudden stillness. They all seemed to have gained a healthy respect for Kine's fury and held her commands in high regard. However at this point Kyara was also one who helped still the men and Kine noticed this with a happy smile, peeking around her tree to watch as the sorceress unleashed her hell on the guards just as the trees fell and blocked any escape. It brought a very gleefully sadistic smile to her face as the lightning cracked around them and men and horses were felled by her power. However just as she was about to charge in the sickly smell of burnt flesh hit her nostrils and a shiver went up her spine. It wiped the smile of her face and made her hands tremble on her axe hilt as she endeavoured to repress the flood of memories coming to the surface. She managed it with a gutteral roar like a lion breaking from chains and she charged out from the trees with thirty men at her heels.

The disheveled line of men crashed into the remains of the guard and quickly brought down their horses, Kine personally decapitating two of them before eventually there was but one left. She surged forward, ready to gut him and satisfy her sudden need to cause physical harm. However a large bulbous shadow fell over her and her path was cut off by Rafford's rotund form. She almost cut him down too, but she restrained herself to cast a furious glare at his smug face.

"Lets let this one live! Haha! He can tell of our great victory and make the RED IRONS men to be feared!"

Before he had stopped speaking the man had already scurried away and was gone from sight. Kine temperature rose to alarming levels as she stood, incapable of comprehending the sheer stupidity and mindless masculine idiocy that she had just witnessed. This was and ILLEGAL attack! This wasnt war it was BANDITRY and pretty simple banditry at that. Was he really going to spread the word that his band had just killed and stolen from a duke of the land? Apparently he was. Before Kine could act on her immediate instinct to carve open his belly and read his entrails to see if they held any clue to the unbelievable nature of his stupidity he had already strode off with a gaggle of boisterously cheering men who hadn't done a thing in the actual attack.

Kine released a feral kind of growl and stomped off into the trees, her grip on her axe making her fists tremble. She found a suitable clearing and let rip, hacking at the trees around her and very quickly creating a small clearing in the dense woodland, taking as much of her frustration out on the undeserving trees as possible.

Kyara hung back in the safety of the trees as the men attacked, she had already done her part and was too valuable to risk in a melee battle where she was vulnerable. Truthfully, battle made her uncomfortable, being surrounded by enemies and chaos she couldn't keep track of. She preferred attacking from a distance or taking out a single opponent with her knives. She watched with interest as Kine lead the attack, striking down enemies without pause, and as she glared at Rafford after his typically idiotic outburst. Definitely good possibilities there.

Kine stormed off into the woods and Kyara quietly followed her, staying as far behind as she could while still keeping sight of the other woman. She waited while Kine vented some of her anger on the trees then stepped forward into the clearing she had created.

“Not in agreement with our wise leader's decisions?” She asked the question calmly, not wanting to be open about her opinion of Rafford until she knew more about Kine.

Her axe had swung one final time on her seventh tree and the thing creaked and toppled out of the way to reveal the Sorceress woman standing just behind it looking... sneaky... sneaky and considering. Well she obviously had some kind of agenda but at the moment Kine couldn't care less.

“Not in agreement with our wise leader's decisions?” Hah that was a joke. She said it calmly but in that 'calm' manner that was trying to sound calm and merely interested when it was so blindingly obvious that she was much more invested in the question than she wanted to sound. It was cute really. Kine's mother had been much better at it though. But again, Kine didn't really care at that moment, here was another person to vent to, if she took it to the Leader and then he came after Kine then so be it, give her a reason to gut him good and proper.

"Mark my words the man is going to get us all killed." She used the momentum fueled by the anger of this statement to swing at another nearby tree and nearly smash it in half. "Who by the gods graces put him in charge! I swear to KORD I will crack his chest open and crush his heart by all the Ghaz'Kah vattershdan ugruk'ghan, OMORDISHDAK KARADASH!" She slipped pretty easily into Dwarvish swearing and toppled her eighth tree with a second axe swing and a kick to the trunk for good measure.

Kyara was taken aback by Kine's overt display of anger. She wasn't used to people not being intimidated by Rafford and she felt a flash of jealousy and irritation, what wouldn't she give to be able to feel safe in being so open about how she felt. What you have to do now is control yourself, nothing new there. She told herself and kept her face and posture relaxed while she considered what to say next. It didn't sound like Kine needed much encouragement, should she risk pushing and revealing her own opposition to Rafford? Kine could be trying to trick her but she much very doubted it, she didn't seem the type and what would be the point? What reason would she have to ally herself to Rafford, to that point, why was she even here? The dwarf didn't make sense to Kyara and it made her uneasy. But she could be about to get what she had desperately wanted for the last two years, she could deal with that, had taken worse risks.

“I don't think anyone did, he just took charge and no one here was brave enough to stand up to him. I don't think many would be sad to see him go though.”

Kine had just turned back from her final tree to hear Kyara's interesting comment.

"I don't think many would be sad to see him go though.”

Kine had to suppress a laugh, it really was very sweet and almost endearing, the attempts she was making to bluntly push Kine into her wanted direction. Oh girly you want me to KILL him don't you? Yup, it really was cute. It wasn't like Kine didnt want to kill the man, maybe she should? It would be one more fool out of the world and one less idiot to worry about. Ah but no, if she did that... one would expect her to take over... and no she really couldnt do that. Not again, never ever again. She would grin and bear it until someone else turned up who was better qualified and then help that one into control... hopefully that would happen before Rafford lead the whole Mercenary Band off a cliff or something. So she played it a little coy for now.

"Indeed I cant imagine anyone missing him... from the looks of the members, I would not have been surprised that no one else had tried bring him down but for you! ... You seem pretty darn capable, powerful too! Why is it YOU haven't had at him yet?"

Kyara wasn't sure whether to be flattered or further irritated and she responded without much thought, “He is protected from my magic by a wizard's spell.”

Kine raised an eyebrow in interest. So, he did have some manner of brain in him, at least enough to keep him alive. Kine suspected the man was just far better suited to living and surviving on his own than being in control of the lives of others. Few seemed to understand how weak and vulnerable command made you and he was obviously one of them. That stunt he pulled was going to come back and bite them all one day.

"Hm, how frustrating for you..." Kine considered saying something else... but she shouldn't she needed to not be tempted. She could survive a while longer until someone with better knowledge and capabilities than her came along. She could probably find someone like that herself. "We'll see what time brings us then, excuse me Sorceress." She gave a brief dip of her head as she swung her Axe over her shoulder, grinning with interest at Kyara as she left the grove to go tend to Farin.