THE QUEST FOR THE CRYSTALS
~The Book of Wind~

By E.E. Blake




The Quest for the Crystals: The Book of Wind
By E.E. Blake

Published by Sterilized Dirt at Smashwords.com

Copyright 2012 E.E. Blake

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.



Once again, to Mr. Hughes.




Prologue

The world of Vida. For an endless age, the heart of this vast terrene of fertile lands, abundant forests, and mammoth mountain peaks were cared for by maternal nature’s abiding children: The Apostles of Mother Azna.
It was in these days of peace that Vida’s balance found harness within the core of the five Great Crystals of Wind, Earth, Fire, Water, and Spirit, all hidden away in solace within the niches of the world.
To honour their Goddess, her Apostles constructed Temples within the farthest reaches of Vida’s five continents, and for many years, the Crystals and their Apostles lived in harmony with one another, separated across Vida’s regions of Galheist, Lylia, Fyrand, Castor, and Doblah.
However, it is naive to believe that the idea of peace is one of permanence.
As the first Feast of the Jubilee approached, Mother Azna bestowed her children with the gift of a fallen stream of stardust. From inside the hollows of the fiery mass within, came a Man from the lands of Terra, far beyond the reach of Vida.
Led by the advisory of Zoot Lablanche, Vida became a world of advancement. A government was formed within the mountains of Doblah Region, and over time, as Man’s reach spread over Vida, the teachings of Mother Azna were lost to but a few who opposed the new world order.
Under the fierce determination of Alexia Garbonde, a rebellion was formed, and a swift attack upon the government commenced. This was the first outbreak of violence in the name of Mother Azna, which led to what would be later known as, “The War of Ages”.
Lablanche’s counter attack was swift and fierce, but time and time again, the diplomacy of the Alliance government was thwarted in stealth by the cunning bravery of Alexia and his ever-growing militia known by those of the underground as, “The Retainers”.
However, amidst the struggle of power, an even darker force unearthed. As crimson fog loomed across the mountaintops and spilled throughout the valleys, bandits and vandal hearts overtook the countryside, looting caravans and razing every town in between. Before long, no inch of Vida was at all safe to journey.
It was not long after, that the influence of Alexia waned, and the Retainers were crushed under the iron fist of Prime Minister Lablanche and his Alliance Army.
…Now, ten years later, the shadow of war once again threatens the world of Vida.



PART ONE
~ The Wind Chapter ~



1. Voices in the Wind

In the midnight sky, a purple haze crept across the vast wheat fields while quiet gallops in the distance filled the ears of little Regina Lepue. The skunk turned and saw the cavalry of red-and black armoured soldiers through the rickety, weather-worn wooden posts of the six-foot high fence that lined the village perimeter.
“Regina, get back here!” Regina felt a hard tug at her arm, and she was yanked to security against her mother’s hip, just as a cloud of frantic townsmen raced past, fumbling for the swords and maces at their hips.
“I wanna go with Daddy!” Regina protested. She broke free from her mother’s clutch, and ran after the group of armed animals just as another dozen came from around the block, yelling and shouting commands at each other before they passed by the two skunks in a hurry.
“Regina, wait!” her mother called after her, but Regina was already merged with the others.
Regina found her father near the entrance to Altas Village.
Thomas Lepue gazed out past the village’s wide-open gate, with sword held at his side. As the townsmen rushed past him through the gates and into the night, Regina’s father looked over at his six-year-old daughter. A small smile of relief formed on his otherwise fretful face.
“Daddy!” Regina shouted. She started to take a few steps towards him, but Thomas stopped her with an extended paw. The sound of the armoured cavalry was almost upon Altas Village.
Slowly, his sword-arm rose, pointed out past the open gate.
Regina felt the cool wind against the fur upon her tender cheek.
“Gloria, take Regina out of the village,” Regina’s father said as soon as the girl’s mother caught up. “There’s nothing for us here now.”
“Thomas, I’m not—” Gloria started to say.
Regina became distracted by streams of orange light that arched in the air, towards Altas. At first, she thought they were fireworks, until they rained down upon the streets. As townsfolk around the skunk family were felled by the aerial onslaught, Regina watched in shock as thatched rooftops surrounding her burst into flame.
Next thing Regina knew, the town was filled with the red-and-black soldiers – shadows coming out of the night – crossing weapons with every able-body in Altas Village.
“Daddy!” Regina wailed when they became separated by the in-town skirmish. She watched her father block the attack of an arbitrary soldier in the crowd. Her father thrust forward, but the bandit parried the attack, and with brute force, leaned against Thomas with an arm. Regina saw a quick flash of the soldier’s sword thrust down overtop her father, but before she could witness his fate, the backs of two other fighters met, blocking her view.
“Thomas!!” Regina’s mother screamed, and before Regina could rush between the two men to chase after her father, she felt her mother’s grip around her tiny arm, and was ruggedly dragged backwards. In a brash attempt to once again break free from her mother however, Regina tripped over her own feet and tumbled into the damp street, where she knocked her head against the cold, wet, cobblestone. 
Regina awoke with a start, and for a moment, forgot where she presently was. It dawned on her then that she had fallen asleep against a poplar tree by a ravine, just off of the main path in Altas Forest that led between the village of Altas and its sister city, Keeto.
Just a dream, Regina thought.
The same dream which had haunted the sixteen-year-old since she was a little kit.
I wonder how long I’ve been asleep for, Regina wondered. She mashed her clenched paws against her eyes, to rub away the dust of sleep. The skunk pushed up to a stand, fluffed out her tail, and flattened the skirt of her hooded frock.
What mattered most was that the severe abdominal pain that forced her to stop in the first place was no longer present.
Regina washed her face in the ravine. She gazed at her own reflection in the water’s ripples for a time while she reflected on the horrible nightmare. She had woken up in a recovery tent some time after the raid upon Altas Village, but by then, all of the slain townsfolk from that horrific night’s surprise attack had been buried.
Though there was nothing she could have ever done to prevent the deaths of her parents, Regina had never quite recovered from guilt.
She no longer lived in Altas, though she worked there at the hospital as a day-shift nurse. She had lived on her own since the attack, helping out around the village as best she could until she was old enough to mandatorily attend Mecia Hall, Vida’s only university, across the Gabriel Sea in Castor Region. As soon as Regina graduated at the age of fifteen, she relocated to the remote beach of Sharktapus, at the edge of Altas Village.
Regina continued along the forest path between Keeto and Altas until she came to a fork in the road that led to both Keeto and an unknown part deeper within the forest. Regina had never wandered down the opposite road, always afraid of the undetermined dangers, bandits, and grotesque monsters her wild imagination dreamt up.
As soon as Regina started upon the branching road to her right, to Keeto, she heard rapid hooves in the distance, sprinkled with the odd whinny and sharp neigh. Regina turned and saw a small-sized cavalry riding towards her from the opposite fork in the road.
The five riders, she soon realized, were clad in a dark green armour overtop black chainmail. Green and black: the colours of the Alliance Army, Vida’s militant police force established by the world’s leader, Zoot Lablanche, whose government reigned all of Vida from the mountain continent of Doblah.
“Help me…” A soft voice whispered in Regina’s ear.
Regina went rigid with frightened alert.
“Regina ... Regina Lepue … please, help me…”
“You! Get out of the middle of the road!” 
Regina shook her head and let out a sharp gasp when she realized the cavalry of Alliance soldiers was almost on top of her. The lead rider, marked by the flowing navy blue cape around her shoulders, wound her gauntleted paw around her horse’s reins and pulled hard.
With a shriek, the dark steed reared up on its back legs, slashing at the air with its front hooves.
 “Is death your wish today, peasant?” the lead rider demanded through the rhino-horned helmet visor that covered her face.
“I – I’m sorry,” Regina stammered. “I didn’t mean to. I just – I don’t know what happened just now.”
 “Help me … Regina Lepue… Please, help…”
Regina let out a light gasp. The voice seemed to come from inside the lead rider’s saddlebag.
“You don’t know what happened just now? You were almost trampled, that’s what happened just now!” the lead rider spat, and then dismounted from her horse with a heavy thud.
Regina swallowed hard and took a couple of steps backwards. “I – I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…”
“This is your final warning,” the lead rider declared as she drew a long broadsword from the scabbard at her hip. “You get out of my way, or I’ll cut you down on the spot. You hear me?”
“Correct me if I’m wrong, General Uriost…” said a new voice from behind Regina, “But that would be manslaughter, and killing is against Azna’s law, is it not?”
The lead rider lowered her sword and tilted her visor up to reveal a youthful wolf’s face. Her yellow eyes narrowed coldly past Regina’s shoulder. “Doblah’s law is precedent over all others. Are you responsible for this directionally-impaired one?” 
Regina turned and saw a hooded, grey-cloaked animal with a gnarled walking staff and a large camping pack over his shoulders coming towards them along the path from Keeto. Regina couldn’t make out the animal’s face, except for the white muzzle that poked out from under his hood.
“Hello again, General Uriost,” the cloaked animal said in a cool tone. He came to a full stop a few feet before them all. “Is it safe to assume you’ve already made your visit to the Stone Zephyr?”
The lead rider’s expression dulled slightly in thought. She opened her mouth to rebut – but then her eyes went hard with realization. “It’s the heretic! Seize him, now!!”
“Heretic?” Regina murmured. She threw a glance at cloaked animal, then looked at the soldiers, and then back at the cloaked animal.
The figure regarded Regina, and then said, “Not here, General. Not now, with the girl here.”
“Who are you to tell me where I make arrests in this land?” demanded General Uriost as her four soldiers quickly dismounted and drew their swords.
“I have something you’re looking for, and you have something that doesn’t belong to either of us; I don’t want the girl to witness a similar slaughter here as those in Doblah witnessed when they tried to stop me,” the cloaked animal said. 
Regina watched a wave of rigidness sweep through the small platoon before her. What was going on? What were they talking about?
What had she walked into the middle of?
“General Uriost…” the cloaked animal murmured. “…You can avoid this.”
A dark silence overcame those present along the forked road. Uriost and her soldiers remained rigid and unmoving – however, her paw clenched tighter around the hilt of her broadsword.
In the distance, a bird started to chirp somewhere among the treetops.
“At least let the girl leave before we commence,” the hooded animal suggested, “unless you were to kill her for simply meandering in the middle of the path. I didn’t realize disrupting the flow of horse travel was punishable by death.” The animal looked at Regina and asked, “Did you know of this law?”
Regina froze with terror.
“Strange, I know,” the hooded animal answered for her.
“Enough of these games,” Urisot declared. “Seize him!”
Two of her four Alliance soldiers rushed past her with their swords at the ready.
The mysterious hooded animal tossed his walking staff to the ground and brandished a white-hilted sword from under his cloak. Then – with swift movements Regina didn’t know possible – the traveler made two quick slashes at his attackers, and the soldiers crumpled at the animal’s field boots, dead.
A cold stillness cut through the air. General Uriost and her remaining forces stood dumbfounded, as though they had never seen such a display before. 
“Im … impossible…” Uriost’s voice crackled. Behind her, both soldiers raised their rhino-horned visors, wide-eyed. One of them then instinctively reached for his horse saddle, ready to mount and escape.
“Get out of here!” the cloaked animal snarled at Regina, but the skunk found herself frozen to the spot, overwhelmed with terror and unable to respond to the cloaked figure’s demand, though she desperately wanted to.
“You killed Lieutenant Artois with that sword…” General Uriost said with a strong voice, although it was clear she was also frightened.
“I’ve killed many people,” the cloaked animal stated plainly, “and I’ll continue to do so until Lablanche falls. You know what he’s doing is against Azna’s law – why do you play to his treachery?!”
 “You speak of treachery, and yet you’re the one who’s defiled Nimbus, Blade of the Unicorn!” snarled General Uriost. She started forward with her broadsword held at the ready. “I’ll end you myself!”
“Don’t do this, General!” The cloaked animal warned as he sheathed the white-hilted sword, which Regina presumed was Nimbus.
“General!” one of the two other soldiers cried out. He grabbed the other by the shoulder, and they rushed forward with drawn swords raised overhead, to flank Uriost.
“Watch out!” Regina found herself screaming at the hooded figure. 
The mysterious rogue snatched his gnarled walking staff in both paws and cracked the general in the side of the helmet with a loud clang before she was on top of him. Then, as she toppled to one side in pain, the traveler tossed his staff back into the middle of the road and drew Nimbus once again.
Immediately, the two Alliance officers skidded in their tracks with eyes wide and breath held as soon as they saw the sword turned on them. In the light of the sun that peeked through the branches and leaves overhead, the bloodied tip of Nimbus glinted brightly.
“If you value your wretched lives, you will relinquish that saddlebag to me,” the cloaked animal ordered slowly. “You will take your general and your fallen comrades, and you will leave this place.”
 The rogue nodded past the soldiers, to Uriost’s horse. One of the shaken soldiers wandered over to the steeds and in silence, removed the saddlebag from his general’s horse.
“Pathetic cowards,” Uriost growled as the other soldier helped her to stand.
“It is far better this way, General,” The cloaked animal noted in a gentle tone. He then regarded the soldier who returned with the saddlebag, and took it from him. 
 “Remember this day as you rot in abandon,” Uriost swore as soon as she was back on her horse. “This will be the last we cross paths, old man,” she said while her forces gathered their dead.
“As long as our silent war persists, you know it won’t be.” the cloaked animal stated as he sheathed Nimbus again. “Put an end to this while you still can, General Uriost. Only you have the power to.”
Uriost gave an incredulous snort. Then, with a quick snap of her reins, what remained of her unit moved out in shameful silence and rode onward along the path to Altas Village.
Regina’s mouth was bone dry, and she didn’t realize until then just how much her body trembled. She shook her head, and her eyes dropped to the gnarled walking staff which had rolled to a stop near where she stood.
Her eyes flicked back over to the hooded animal. He peeked inside of General Uriost’s saddlebag for a moment, uttered a heavy sigh, closed the flap, and slung it around his shoulders, despite the heavy camping pack he wore.
Why did she warn this hooded rogue about the two other soldiers? He was a vandal!
But, he had also saved her life, she realized.
Swallowing down her fear, Regina took a few timid steps over to the walking staff, and picked it up in both paws. The skunk’s tail flicked with slight wariness as she crossed to the other side of the path to meet the cloaked animal.
“H – here.” She outstretched her arms to present the staff to him like a kind of sacred offering.
The cloaked animal looked at her in silence – and then as he regarded his walking staff, the hood dipped to hide his eyes even more than it already did.
“Thank you,” he said, and took the gnarled walking staff from Regina.
“Who are you?” Regina asked. “I’ve … I’ve never seen anybody oppose the Alliance before like that. What were you all talking about before, about your sword, and Doblah?”
The hooded animal looked at Regina for a long moment, and then walked past her in silence.
Regina blinked in confusion. She turned and watched the animal continue along the branching path that the Alliance soldiers had initially come from. It was then that she noticed that the animal’s cloak was riddled with little holes torn in the fabric.
Odd, the skunk thought, and wondered why anyone would hang onto such a tattered old thing.
“Wait!” she called to him.
“Forget what you saw today,” the cloaked animal said to her without looking back.
Regina remembered the voice that tickled her ear only a few minutes before swords were drawn and blood was spilled. The skunk looked over her shoulder and gazed upon the large, dark pools of Life Energy that slowly absorbed into the grit and dirt of the dusty forked path.
Regina wondered why the soldiers were so afraid of the cloaked rogue. It was obvious he was a skilled swordsman – but they were Alliance soldiers. Nobody opposed the Alliance Army.
In her gut, the skunk knew it would be wise to head home to Sharktapus Beach and take the vandal’s advice and forget everything she had seen and heard. It was the sensible thing to do. Whatever happened between the rogue and the Alliance was none of her business.
She was just a nurse in Altas, after all. Nothing more. Not a soldier of rebellion, like her father.
Just a simple nurse. That was all.
Regina chewed on her tongue as she continued to watch the mysterious traveler wander down the forest path until he vanished within the darkness of the woods.
But again, the vandal, whoever he was, and whatever injustices he was embroiled in with the Alliance and Doblah were, he had saved Regina’s life.
And, more importantly, the skunk realized, who did the mysterious voice asking for help belong to, why didn’t the others seem to hear it, and why did it specifically seek out Regina’s help?
“What on Vida is going on?” she wondered aloud.

~

With coffee mug to his lips, Dwain Spikeclaw watched from the far side of the hangar as the black-and-gold airship to Garia drew forward, cradled by two hefty straps across the bow and stern from the chain-operated crane above.
The hedgehog had seen to the Alliance Army’s airships countless times in his three years of service as a hangar engineer to Prime Minister Lablanche – and yet he could never quite get over how majestic the vessels all were in their own way.
Like most of Vida’s modern technology, such as steam-engineered electricity, radios, and other various things such as the Vidian civil calendar, the airships were constructed under Prime Minister Lablanche’s own personal designs – these vessels of what he referenced from “seventeenth century” sea ships … whatever a seventeenth century was.
Aside from the ability to traverse Vida’s vast ocean, the Gabriel Sea, the Alliance ships were able to fly all over the planet at a far quicker pace, thanks to specially-crafted propellers on their hulls, as well as fore and mizzen masts. 
With a loud clank, the crane stopped with such force that the airship swung a bit under the hold of its harnesses. Directly below at the awaiting dock station stood four of Dwain’s fellow engineers, with tools and checklists at the ready. Dwain took another mouthful of coffee and turned back to his own work while the crane started to lower the vessel for its inspection before the midnight flight.
He and the four other engineers were hand-picked to attend a conference in Garia that would showcase Prime Minister Lablanche’s latest technical designs to try to relieve Vida’s severely growing economical instability. Something Dwain thought funny, since everything that Prime Minster Lablanche thought would make Vida a better place to live seemed to only make the world more and more caustic.
The hedgehog set his coffee mug down on top of a closed toolbox and overheard two other engineers, a mouse named Rad and a raccoon named Klous, who neared completion of another airship's preparation.
“Do you think they found the guy who broke in last night yet?” asked Rad.
“‘Broke in’?” Klous snorted, “I heard it was an inside job.”
“Said who?”
“I don’t know. That’s just what I heard, though. Anyway, who knows? I heard that the Prime Minister has soldiers stationed all over the place – not just here, but around the different regions, and that Chancellor Domini has his own forces out and about Mecia.”
“Who told you that?”
“I dunno. That’s just what I heard.”
Dwain felt the strong urge to head over to the Garia-issued airship, but instead bit down on his duty as an engineer and kept an ear open on the gossip. He had only heard snippets of what had happened during the previous night’s attack, and no one else he questioned seemed to know or wanted to talk about it.
“I’m surprised the Prime Minister hasn’t made a statement yet,” Rad admitted as he came around the masthead and checked something off his clipboard. “Whoever that vandal who broke in here is, he’s a threat to all of Vida! It’s hard to believe Prime Minister Lablanche would let an attack on Doblah go unseen to the public eye...”
“…We lost some good soldiers last night,” Klous grunted.
“Spikeclaw!”
Dwain’s attention faltered and he looked over to the Garia-issued airship, where his other co-workers were. The hangar supervisor, a tall, burly, fox named Jerek, made an impatient gesture at the hedgehog.
Dwain nodded, finished his lukewarm drink in a single mouthful, and wandered over, neglecting a drop of coffee that had dribbled along his chin.
“So how did lunch go, buddy?” grinned a short and stout long-haired feline named Sol, as Dwain drew closer.
Wiping his muzzle on the back of his coat sleeve, Dwain’s other paw instinctively touched the ring box stuffed inside the hip pocket of his cargo pants.
The hedgehog sighed.
“Didn’t happen,” he muttered.
“What?” Jarek blinked among the surprised looks of the three other engineers.
“I couldn’t go through with it,” Dwain admitted.
“Why not?” Sol demanded. “What happened? You didn’t get cold footpaws, did you?”
“I’m just really hung up on what happened last night,” Dwain admitted. “I can’t get it out of my head. I’m still pretty shaken up about it, to be honest – that one guy slaughtered twelve soldiers, including a General.”
“We're all pretty spooked still,” said a frail-looking hound named Felix – one of the oldest Alliance hangar engineers. He took off his worker’s cap and mashed a clenched paw against a wrinkled eye.
“You didn’t tell your girl about the attack, did you, Spikeclaw?” Jarek prodded him in the chest with scrutiny-filled eyes.
Dwain went wide-eyed, and shook his head no. “Of course not.”
“Good. Anyway, I’m sorry it didn’t work out for you today.  Hopefully when we get back, eh?”
“If we get back,” muttered Sol as he wiped his oil-stained paws on the thighs of his overalls. “Alive, anyway. Who knows what’ll happen if we run into him again at Garia.”
“One in a million chances, Sol. Won’t happen,” said Felix, wiping the sweat from his brow. He leaned against the hull of the airship and yawned.
“There’s gonna be at least 500 soldiers in and around the conference. Even if the heretic finds a way to Garia, he ain’t gettin’ far,” Jarek said. “Now cut the chit chat and huddle up. We gotta lotta work to get done still.”
The three workers divvied up on the tasks listed on Jarek’s clipboard and went to work in silence for a while. When Dwain was finished topping up the coal supply, he wandered around the lower deck of the airship, until he found Felix inside the engine room, tweaking the exhaust pipes.
Of anyone to know the workings of the great big Alliance pie, Dwain knew Felix must have had his thumb stuck in somewhere. People trusted Felix for some reason. Either because he was old and wise, or usually soft-spoken and disarming, the hedgehog didn’t quite know.
Dwain leaned against the open doorframe and started to ask, “Hey, Fel—” when the old hound jumped in surprise, nearly bouncing his head off of one of the very pipes he had just fixed.
“Dwain, you wanna gimme another heart attack?” he demanded.
“Sorry,” Dwain muttered. “I just uh … I heard that the guy who broke in last night took something from the castle. Do you know what it was? I keep asking around, but everybody’s got their lips all stapled up.”
Felix let out a heavy irritated sigh, and waved the hedgehog off. “You gotta stop frettin’ about that. It’s no good. The army’ll find him and wring him ‘round the neck good n’ hard. As long as the heretic’s not in Doblah anymore, it’s not our problem; we’re engineers, not soldiers. We got other things to tinker about with.”
Dwain leaned harder against the open door with arms crossed over his chest, a deep scowl on his muzzle.
“But if you really gotta know,” Felix went on, “I think I heard the Nimbus sword got hocked, and that’s what the heretic used to git past all those guards last night.”
“…The Nimbus?” Dwain repeated. “Why’d he want the sword Prime Minister Lablanche uses to dub generals with?”
Felix shrugged.
“Thanks,” Dwain murmured, and started to head to the upper deck, when Felix called him back.
“I’m sorry it didn’t work out with you and your girl today,” the old hound said.
“Me too,” sighed Dwain. “If I could, I’d bring her along to the conference, but since that’s not allowed … there’s no point proposing until after we get back. I just hope Regina doesn’t flip out on me when I do pull the ring.”
A broad smile formed on Felix’s muzzle, wrinkling his old face even more than it already was. “She sounds like a sweet girl, Dwain. I wouldn’t worry if I was you. What’s the worst that can happen?”
“She’ll say no?” Dwain frowned.
Felix blinked back, surprised – and then exploded into a breathless fit of laughter that caused him to double over.
Dwain stared at him.
“How … how could a girl say no to a good ol’ sense o’ humour like yours, my boy?” Felix demanded breathlessly, smacking his knee. He let out a couple small puffs of laughter, wiped a tear from his eye, and then threw his head back with another loud guffaw.
“Too bad I wasn’t kidding,” Dwain muttered while he left Felix to his thunderous chortles. 
“…‘No’ … ‘no’, he says … Gaahhh, ha, ha, ha!”
“It’s not that funny.”



2. Road to the Stone Zephyr

The road that both this cloaked swordsman and General Uriost chose to tread seemed to Regina to last forever. After a while of tailing the mysterious rogue, her ears perked at something what sounded like the howl of banshees amidst the rustling leaves overhead.
She ducked around a shrub and squinted through a bare patch within the crisscross of tree branches that shrouded her from view. In the near distance, Regina saw the hooded animal come across a divide in the forest, marked by two high marble retaining walls on either side of the road, guarded by two large pillars. Beyond the marble divide, Regina noticed a harsh gale that coursed between the branches and leaves of the forest’s path.
“What is this place?” Regina wondered. Her eyes narrowed as she watched the cloaked animal pass between the two pillars. The wind caught up the loose ends of his cloak, but the rogue pressed onward, unbothered.
Regina slipped out of the brush and saw that atop the pillars stood an identical pair of eagle statues, posed in mid-flight; wings spread wide, eyes focused with talons extended for a ready attack.
The skunk eyed the wind-blown path beyond, and waited until the hooded animal was a long ways ahead before she continued onward.
Although Regina expected the windy assault, she was still surprised by its strength when she passed between the pillars. The heavy, screeching, gale that danced with her fur and the loose ends of her frock was warm, at least, and that was all she could ask for.
After a time, they came to the edge of a cliff that oversaw a rocky valley laced with the same eagle-tipped pillars as before. Directly beyond the valley floor stood a second cliff that bore a steep stone staircase, up to a grand-looking peak-roofed shrine of some sort, built directly into the cliff’s face.
Regina had never seen such a magnificent structure in her life. Not even the university in Mecia was as astonishing. She slunk a bit to keep out of sight when the hooded rogue suddenly came back up the path. Regina held her breath while the animal walked past her with large steps. His cloak fluttered open, and she saw his black-furred paw upon the hilt of the white sword at his hip.
He didn’t notice her, however, and it was then that Regina realized that there was a strange smell in the air that she hadn’t noticed until just then.
The hooded swordsman came to a full stop in the path and sniffed the air. He let out a low growl, and continued up the path.
Regina furrowed her brow. The smell was strong. Musky. It was definitely equine – except she couldn’t figure out where the odour wafted from. Her ears then perked to the sound of a stray whinny amidst the wind’s howl.
The hooded animal heard the sound as well and continued up the path, around a corner from where Regina had followed him from. Regina took the time to better inspect the cliff that overlooked the rocky valley terrain. Like the opposite cliff face, there was a steep, stone, staircase that led down into the valley.
“What is this place?” she wondered aloud after a survey of the perimeter and the shrine across the way from where she stood at the top step. The wind picked up stronger and caught hold of Regina’s hood, throwing it over her eyes. As she pushed the fabric back, Regina thought she saw something move down in the valley by one of the middle-most pillars.
She didn’t know how long it would be until the rogue returned, and so hid back inside the safety of the roadside underbrush.
The hooded rogue returned shortly thereafter. Regina watched with held breath as he also surveyed the pillar-dotted valley. He then started to descend the stone steps.
Regina waited until the cloaked animal was about halfway down the steep staircase until she withdrew from the foliage and followed him.
If it wasn’t for the fact that the stairs were so well-built, the sharp slope into the valley would have been deadly, Regina realized. With jaw set with determination, she side-stepped down after the swordsman, keeping a healthy distance between the two of them. 
The heretic reached the valley floor and glided along the rocky terrain, between parallel rows upon rows of eagle pillars, towards the steps up to the shrine built into the side of the opposite cliff. Regina got more than a quarter of the way down the staircase when a voice suddenly rang out in the harsh air.
“…That’s far enough, heretic!”
Regina froze. From the high vantage, she saw four Alliance soldiers appear from behind pillars on either side of the cloaked animal, weapons at the ready.
“Your horses were hidden in plain sight,” the heretic shrugged, and then brushed back one side of his cloak to reveal his paw on Nimbus’s hilt. “I could smell their stench on you all the way from the upper road. So sorry you went to all that effort to ambush me, and here I am, ready anyhow.”
One of the soldiers closer to the shrine’s staircase caught notice of Regina and aimed his crossbow at her. “He’s got an accomplice!”
“Don’t shoot me!” Regina screeched and immediately squatted where she stood on the steps, with paws over her head.
As the heretic swung around to face her, the harsh wind caught hold of his hood and threw it backwards to reveal the surprised look of a grit-toothed and youthful-faced charcoal-furred fox, whose grey eyes both radiated, and pierced Regina.
The skunk briefly noticed a glint against the fox’s throat – a dark-glassed vial.
“What are you–?!” the fox choked.
“Hold it right there!!” a soldier in a navy blue cape, bearing a spear, commanded from the heretic’s right-hand side. “By law of Prime Minister Lablanche, you are both under arrest for conspiring against the government of Doblah!”
“What?!” Regina cried. “No, I—”
“Leave her out of this,” the heretic snarled at the general. “She’s just a wandering peasant from one of the sister cities.”
“We are to trust the word of a blasphemer?” demanded the general. “Lay Nimbus before you and step away!!”
The two archers by shrine staircase drew forward with their crossbows aimed at the heretic.
“You up there!” the general snapped at Regina. “Get down here where I can see you in plain sight!”
“You’re making a grave mistake,” the heretic growled as soon as he brandished Nimbus. “…Either way, I’m going inside that Temple. Whether you’ll stand alive or not after I do so is entirely your decision – but leave the girl out of this. Our war isn’t hers!”
“This is your last warning, heretic!!” the Alliance general barked.
“So be it,” the heretic rumbled, and then spun Nimbus once in his left paw.
The archers fired their crossbows at the mysterious black-furred fox, but with swift, impossible movements, he chopped one arrow in half and deflected the other with the bulbous head of his walking staff.
“It’s meaningless to waste your arrows on me,” the heretic breathed. “Surrender your arms if you so value your lives. Dying in Lablanche’s name is a waste.”
“He wouldn’t dare…” scoffed the Alliance swordsman on the fox’s left.
“You didn’t see what that sword did to Artois and the others, Farnam,” the general warned.
The fox made a sudden dash for Farnam and the two of them clashed swords. Regina remained rigid with fright as she watched the skirmish below. The heretic forced the soldier hard back against one of the pillars single-pawedly, and as the general came at him with spear at the ready, the fox swung around and walloped him between the shoulder and neck with the head of his staff.
“Stop him!” the Alliance general croaked as he stumbled backwards, slouched forward with a gauntleted paw over his injury. The archers navigated around some pillars with fresh arrows ready. Farnam forced all of his weight against the heretic and leaned into his sword, fending off his attacker.
“Good,” the heretic rumbled. He tossed the walking staff aside and spun Nimbus once again, before wielding it in both paws.
“Somebody get that girl before she escapes!” the general snarled before he stretched out his neck and worked his shoulder back to quick health with slight, circular motions.
Regina’s eyes went wide as the nearest archer turned and aimed a loaded crossbow in the skunk’s direction.
“No!” the heretic bellowed. He swung a heavy elbow into Farnam’s horned visor and when the soldier stumbled back in pain, the fox snatched a hunting knife conveniently strapped to his opponent’s hip and flung it blade-first through the air, where it sank hilt-deep into the offending archer’s chest plate – sending her flopping back against a pillar and her arrow shooting skyward.
Regina felt her stomach burn with sickness. She needed to get out of danger before she ended up arrested … or worse. 
She let out a gasp and watched in horror as the heretic grabbed the soldier named Farnam by the back of the neck and sank Nimbus’s blade straight through his torso, and then let the poor raccoon crumple to the ground.
“Are you all right, Mullin?” the other archer demanded as he ran to his comrade’s aid.
The seemingly mortally-wounded archer wrapped her metal-clad digits around the hilt of the hunting knife and drew it out of her chest plate with a low creak from the bent-in metal. She tossed the hunting knife away and offered a short nod to her companion.
Regina knew enough that a hit to the lungs like that with a knife or arrow – even with armour and chainmail on – was fatal.
Shocked into surprise by the impossible sight, the skunk flicked her attention back to Farnam, who lay motionless by a pillar as the heretic danced blades against the general’s own hunting knife. Frantic thoughts raced through Regina’s mind as her confused and paralyzed body forced her to be a spectator of the gory skirmish.
How was the one soldier still alive after a blow like that? …And yet, why wasn’t the other?
A gruff yelp from below snapped Regina back to reality. She saw the heretical fox fall to one knee as he caught an arrow in the left shoulder.
“Good job, Mullin! Cover me!” the general urged, and as the archers readied themselves, he rushed in for the finishing blow.
“No!” Against better logic, Regina raced down the steps, snatched up the heretic’s walking staff, and cracked the Alliance grunt between the legs, sending him to the ground with a sharp yelp.
“You fool! Now you truly are a traitor to Doblah!” cried the heretic. With a growl, he then withdrew the arrow out of his shoulder with grossly smooth motion.
“I – what…?” Regina blinked, distracted by the heretic’s disregard for what should have been a severe injury.
“Get out of here while still you can!” the fox barked at her.
“But what about—”
“This isn’t your fight!!” 
The heretic then swung around and threw an outward arm at the female archer, who was busy in the distance readying another arrow. A burst of yellow light formed in his paw and flung the archer back-first against a pillar before she could fire.
Regina let out another shrill cry when the second archer flew down at them from the air somehow, with his own hunting knife held pointed out.
The heretic flung himself skyward with Nimbus in mid-slash at his attacker.
Regina threw her arms over her face and looked away before she saw the outcome. There was a sudden yelp of agony, and then a few seconds later, she felt the impact of somebody landing a few feet away. When she opened her eyes, Regina saw the charcoal-furred fox with his back to her, shoulders heaving with exhaustion and sword at the ready.
His opponent’s corpse lay in the dirt, a half-foot beyond.
“Shall we dance a little longer?” the heretic asked the other archer over the sounds of her general’s agonized gasps. “…or will you step aside at last?”
With the joints of her armour clicking audibly as her body trembled, the remaining archer slowly leveled her loaded crossbow with the heretic’s chest.
“D – do it!” rasped the general as he crawled over to a pillar with one arm between his thighs. “Do it! L – let him pass!!”
The archer gulped hard, but soon lowered her arms.
“Much obliged,” the heretic nodded to her, and headed over to the long set of stone stairs that led up to the shrine built into the side of the cliff. The fox then said to the Alliance soldiers, “Go. Bring your horses to collect your dead, and get out of here with what remains of your brainwashed existence. Tell Prime Minister Lablanche I will see him soon.”
“P – perfectly clear, sir!” the archer saluted. She then let her crossbow clatter to the ground, skittered across the valley, scooped up her general under the arms, and escorted him up the opposite side of the valley.
“And you,” the fox said with his head turned a bit to regard Regina, “Go back to your home. Go now, before the Alliance catalogues your face and makes you top priority under me. I don’t know what drove you to follow me, but it was not at all wise.”
The heretic then turned back to face the steps, and ascended. Amidst the whisper of the wind, his footpaws clacked against the steep, stone, staircase.
Regina watched in silence. She rose to her feet slowly and considered heading back to her home like her gut instinct screamed at her to do this whole time.
The fox was right: this wasn’t her fight – whatever fight it was that was going on between him and the Alliance.
But, there was something deeper that nagged at her. That voice she had heard before. Despite the carnage and danger she had put herself through, and didn’t wish to be a part of in the first place, she couldn’t go home to Sharktapus Beach without knowing who that voice was, and what it wanted from her.
“Who … who are you?” Regina then asked.
The heretic stopped at the mid-point of the stone staircase.
Regina put a fist against her chest for reassurance. She didn’t know if the fox had heard her soft voice through the howl of the harsh wind around them, or if he had decided to take a rest.
After what felt like a long time to Regina, he finally answered.
“You don’t realize the gravity of your question.”
Regina’s face flushed, and soon, a boiling rage filled her. “Answer me! You can get a sword anywhere in Vida – why did you steal that one, and why are those soldiers so afraid of you?! My mate is an airship engineer for Prime Minister Lablanche, so if something’s going wrong in my government, I have a right to know!!”
“Your boyfriend works for the Alliance?” the heretic asked with his back still turned. “…Maybe you’ll be useful after all,” he mused, and then turned to meet the skunk’s eyes from where he stood, high up on the stairs.
Regina went rigid as the heat in her face drained with alarm.
“W – what do you mean?” she quivered as the heretical fox came back down the stairs. She let out a squeak of fright when he drew the bloodied Nimbus from the sheath at his side as soon as he touched the valley. He walked towards her, the loose ends of his hooded cloak caught in the wind.
Regina noticed a gleam off of the glass vial around the fox’s neck that hung just below the collar line of his tattered, purple tunic.
“What’s his name?” the fox asked when he stopped before Regina.
She opened her mouth to reply, but nothing came out.
“The engineer. Your boyfriend. What’s his name?” the heretic pressed.
Regina’s eyes fell to the bloodied point of Nimbus, which touched the rocky valley floor. She shuddered. “Dwain … Dwain Spikeclaw…”
“Spikeclaw,” the fox repeated with a furrowed brow. His face lowered in deep thought, and after a few seconds, he shook his head. “I don’t know him.”
“Are you going to kill me because he works for the Alliance?” Regina asked. “I … I don’t know why they’re after you, I swear I don’t know anything about it, and I—”
“Shut up,” the fox snarled.
Regina recoiled.
“After I’m done here, you’re going to take me to see Spikeclaw,” the heretic went on. “An airship would make things a lot easier.”
“He’s leaving for Garia tonight – by the time we get back to Altas, it’ll be far too late,” Regina said in desperation. Though, the afterthought did occur that she could alert the Alliance outpost in Altas about the heretic’s whereabouts. 
“Then we’ll go to Garia,” the fox replied. Without warning he then pointed Nimbus’s tip at Regina’s mid-section.
The skunk froze with terror.
“Give me your waist band,” the heretic ordered.
“M – my…?” Regina looked down at the wide strip of rose-coloured fabric wrapped around the waist of her frock.
“Give it to me,” the fox said again.
Regina nodded, swallowing hard. She undid the bow from behind, which let the skirt of her dress puff out a bit at her hips. With a light tremble, she held the belt to the wanted criminal.
The fox took it from her and used the fabric to wipe the layers of blood off of Nimbus’s blade. When done, he re-sheathed the sword, then scrunched the soiled waist band up into a ball and stuffed it into a small hip pack inside his cloak.
Regina threw an anxious glance up the stone staircase behind her, half-hoping to see the Alliance soldiers from before on their way back with reinforcements, if not to claim their two fallen comrades like the heretic asked them to.
“Come along, skunk,” the heretic’s voice recaptured Regina’s attention.
She looked at him and shivered. Before her stood a fox who had slain four Alliance soldiers and scared off an additional five. Regina eyed the numerous arrows strewn around the ground at their footpaws. The fox had drawn one of them from his body, as if it were nothing.
He tugged the hood of his cloak back overhead, and then motioned to the opposite set of stairs leading up to the shrine behind him. “We can’t waste much more time if Garia’s our destination.”

Regina nor the heretic knew that they were being watched from at a distance. Hiding in some bushes that overlooked the valley where the battle had taken place, called the Stone Zephyr, an orange tabby cat lowered the composite bow she had set aimed at the vial dangling around the heretical fox’s neck.
“Garia?” the feline murmured – and then asked herself, “What does the heretic want in Garia?”
The feline pushed some leaves out of her way and watched the two Alliance troops that retreated across the wind-blown forest past. The grunt officer general was saying something to the archer named Mullin – but the orange-furred feline couldn’t make out the conversation between the two over the hiss of rustling tree leaves around her.
“...Officer General Longclaw – please come in,” a voice crackled from the handset on the feline’s hip.
The orange tabby grimaced and slunk back into the safety of the underbrush. She placed her composite bow and arrow across her lap and reached for the radio.
“They’re heading into the Temple now,” she said. “I have some new information, and am going to head back to Doblah immediately.”
“General Longclaw, you have been ordered to remain where you are, and dispatch the heretic,” the voice on the other end of the radio said.
“Let Aruto take care of him for now,” the orange tabby hissed into the handset. “The heretic’s got an accomplice!”



3. The Crystal of Wind


“There’s no telling what lies beyond these doors,” the heretical fox said. “Be wary.” He handed his gnarled walking staff to Regina.
“W – why are you giving me this?” Regina asked.
“If things get as messy in there as they did out here, you’re going to have to fight,” the fox said. “I doubt you know how to properly wield a weapon, but don’t think I missed it when you fended off that grunt officer general back there.”
Regina squeezed her digits tighter around the staff.
Maybe if I bash him in the back of the head, I can run away… she thought, but then shook the idea out of her mind. If the arrows didn’t do anything to him, why would a hit like that?
“…Please, let me go,” Regina begged him. “I – I swear, I won’t tell anybody about you … please, I just – I know you need an airship, but please leave Dwain and me out of this...! There are plenty of Alliance outposts all over Vida! There’s one in Altas, for goodness’ sake!”
“I can’t do that,” the fox grunted. “There may be outposts all over Vida, but none of them harbour airships. Only Doblah does. I don’t have time to wait around for an airship to make a brief stop in Altas or Keeto. That could be days from now.”
Without another word, he leaned his weight against both Temple doors, and with a low creak, the hinges gave way. The doors folded inward to reveal darkness, and the heretic entered.
Regina followed behind without instruction. A strong, repugnant smell filled her nostrils. Around the dimly-lit shrine lay a small number of robed animals crumpled against wooden pews or sprawled across the interlocked stone floor. Many of the robed animals looked as though they were cut down by swords. Others looked to be felled by arrows.
The heretic swore and wandered over to a young feline who sat slumped against the nearest pew to the Temple’s entrance.  The robed cat’s chin was drooped against her chest, where two long arrow shafts stuck out of her robes.
Regina went rigid as soon as her eyes met those of an old, liver-spotted pig in dark robes, who lay sprawled along a small set of carpeted stairs up to an altar, at the far end of the shrine. Part of his head looked like it had been crushed with a blunt object.
 “They’re all…” Regina started, but she couldn’t bring herself to finish the sentence.
“Dead,” the fox confirmed. He rose to his footpaws and checked the pulse of another robed animal. “This one, too. I had hoped it didn't come to this.”
“Who would do such an awful thing?” Regina demanded as her eyes started to well up.
The heretic was already at the altar steps by the time Regina finished. He kneeled by the robed pig, felt for a pulse, and then sadly shook his head before continuing up the steps.
“Did those Alliance soldiers do this?!” Regina cried out at the heretic.
“Your mind and eyes are well-grounded in the virtue of logic,” the fox grunted. He slid General Uriost’s saddlebag from around his shoulders and placed it on the altar. He undid the bag’s fastened flap and slid both paws inside.
A sudden sharp, kneading sensation ripped through Regina’s mind as the charcoal-furred animal withdrew a hefty-sized diamond-like jewel from the bag.
…Regina … Regina Lepue…
Regina’s eyes widened. “That voice…!”
The heretic raised the large jewel above the altar. Regina noticed that there was a deep, jagged chunk missing off of one side of the gem. The diamond started to glow a radiant grey colour, and even though the fox took his paws away, the jewel remained in-air, floating on its own accord.
…Regina… The voice throbbed in her mind. ...Evil brews deep in the mountains … Only one of a pure heart may bring us all together … to seal peace forevermore on Vida…
“What … what is that?” Regina asked as the now-dull glow around the grey jewel throbbed to life a second, more prominent this time.
“You should know,” the heretic responded as soon as he proceeded backwards down the stairs to admire the engorged jewel, “You live in the region of Wind, after all.”
“Wind…?” Regina repeated. Her brow furrowed as she tried to figure out the fox’s cryptic words – and then almost at once, everything made slight sense. “You mean that’s the Crystal of Wind?!” Regina let out. A cold flash of realization then coursed through her. “This … this place is … the Temple of the Wind Crystal?!”
“Yes,” said the heretic. “I’m surprised a girl your age knows of such Vidian lore. Not many pay homage to our ancient culture anymore – not since Lablanche saved us from turmoil after the so-called ‘revolution’.”
Regina heard footpaws race up the steps outside, and when she turned around, the two Alliance soldiers from before barreled into the Temple, armed with readied crossbows.
“Remain where you are!” shouted the general.
The heretic, who still faced the altar, dipped his head. “You’ve made a grievous mistake.”
Regina then heard a door creak open somewhere in the Temple.
Someone’s alive! She thought.
A shadow spilled along the wall just behind the altar, and from the hallway beyond, came forth a hare wearing an Alliance chest plate, complete with chain mail and paw gauntlets. A vibrant red cape flowed from around his shoulders.
“So, it is true ... it was you last night,” the hare exclaimed with an air of elation.
Regina’s eyes flicked over to the heretic, where he stood at the bottom of the altar steps.
“They said it was you in the briefing, but I just couldn’t believe it!” the hare continued and gave a short but enthusiastic clap as he came to a stop at the edge of the altar, where the Crystal of Wind hovered, glowing. He eyed the Crystal and clicked his tongue. “So I see you’ve met with my other units.”
“Rudolph Aruto?” the heretic grunted in surprise. “They sent a mere sergeant out here to get me? What fools.”
“They sent Uriost here, too,” the hare shrugged. “And she’s only a swordsman officer general.”
“You and General Uriost killed all these people?!” Regina cried.
The hare threw a bewildered look at Regina, who he hadn’t noticed until then. “Wherever did you find this girl, old man?”
“Don’t concern yourself with her!” snarled the heretic. “…He’s getting desperate, isn’t he then, if he’s sending even the peons after me.”
Sergeant Aruto scoffed. “You’re not the only criminal on Vida.” The hare then snapped his paws at the two Alliance soldiers guarding the Temple doors. “Axel, Mullin – Arrest them.”
The two lesser soldiers started forward, but at the scratchy sound of Nimbus being drawn out of its sheath, they froze.
“There it is…” Aruto said with reverent awe in his voice as he gazed upon the half-revealed sword at the heretic's hip. “The holy sword Nimbus … ‘The Blade of the Unicorn’! Prime Minister Lablanche will be ever so pleased to have it returned.”
“Not as long as I wield it,” said the heretic.
 “Everything you say and do will be held accountable in court,” Aruto stated plainly. “So, I'd suggest playing nice and setting the sword down at your footpaws.”
“I will not.”
A drop of sweat rolled down Regina's forehead as she watched the exchange with muscles so tensed, she was paralyzed.
“…I was told this may happen,” Sergeant Aruto said. “I thought we could talk this out like civilized mammals – but apparently not so. Ah well.” The hare reached inside a pouch at the belt around his waist, and withdrew a gleaming object clenched between his gauntleted digits. He raised it to cheek-level, and smiled. “They warned me you were a stubborn old dog.”
Aruto gave the object a tight squeeze, and the Wind Crystal behind him throbbed back to life.
“What is that?” the heretic started to ask, but was cut off by the whistling screeches of a harsh gale that picked up around the sergeant hare.
Aruto extended his arm, and the strong wind encircled up into the Temple’s rafters, and then came down with such force upon the heretic, that the fox dropped Nimbus, and was thrown hard into a number of pews near the back of the shrine.
“Apprehend her,” Aruto pointed at Regina. He hopped down the steps and carefully scooped Nimbus up in both paws.
Regina swung around with the heretic’s walking staff brandished in both paws, just as the two Alliance troops drew forward with their crossbows leveled at her.
“I had forgotten how beauteous she is out of her glass case…” the hare mused as he admired the blade at eye-level.
“Please, just let me go!” Regina begged the soldiers. “I'm not with the heretic! I just got lost in Altas and saw the fight outside!”
Aruto tossed back a quizzical look at the skunk. “Is that so?” he asked, and flicked his attention to the two Alliance officers.
“Sir, she attacked me with that staff when I was about to arrest the heretic!” the grunt officer general announced.
Aruto looked back at Regina and squinted at her before saying, “If that is true, you do realize you face trial and detention for counts of aggravated assault against an authority – as well as additional counts of intervening against public safety and assisting a traitor to Doblah?”
“B-but…”
“I'll deal with you after,” Aruto promised Regina, and then gave a short nod to the archer named Mullin as he pocketed the magical object he had used to summon the windy attack. “Go see to the heretic.”
“Yes, sir,” Mullin nodded. She started to edge towards the far side of the shrine, to where the heretic lay struggling amidst the debris of splintered wood. She froze suddenly and took a quick side-glanced at the Nimbus sword now held in the paws of her commanding officer.
“Is there a problem, Mullin?” Aruto asked.
She swallowed hard. “N-no, sir…”
“Just get it over with, Mullin,” Axel commanded. “The sooner we get back to Doblah with the heretic and his little friend here, the better.”
Mullin murmured a quick apology and started down between two vacant pews with her crossbow ready and aimed at the heretic, who pushed some wood off of him, and tried to get to his feet with little success.
“Axel, come and retrieve the Crystal for me, will you?” Aruto asked as he gazed upon the beautiful white-hilted sword in his possession. He lifted the sword up in one paw and light from one of the Temple’s stain glass windows glinted across the blade, and revealed subtle stains that coursed along the tip and sharp edges. Aruto frowned. “You desecrated it.”
“You monster!!” Regina suddenly screamed at the hare. “What did these innocent people do to die?! You’re bound by Doblah to serve and honour Mother Azna’s law!”
“Axel.” Aruto ordered without breaking awestruck gaze with Nimbus.
Regina swung the heretic's walking staff into the grunt officer general before he could apprehend her. With a sharp yelp, the soldier let go of his crossbow and stumbled backwards with his arms across his chest in pain.
“Axel!” Mullin cried out. As soon as she turned on Regina, the heretic found his balance, and tackled her from behind. The both of them fell hard to the floor, just as Mullin fired her weapon. The arrow whizzed through the air, ricocheted off of a structural pillar near Regina, and caught Aruto in the shoulder joint of his chainmail.
The hare fell back against the altar in surprise, and Nimbus slipped from his paws, where it clattered to the floor and slid down a couple of steps. 
“Drop the weapon, skunk!” Axel demanded as he started towards her.
“Have it!” Regina yelled. She tossed the walking staff right at the Alliance soldier, who cowered with arms over his helmet as the heavy rod hit him. Regina then went for Axel’s crossbow and aimed it at him.
“She has some fight in her after all!” grunted Aruto as he struggled up against the altar to regain himself. He grabbed the arrow shaft, and let out a sharp yelp as he snapped it off. “Old man, I’m impressed!”
“So am I,” muttered the heretic. He dragged Mullin to her feet, and threw the archer into the middle of the Temple, where she landed in a bundle by a couple of felled robed animals.
Wide-eyed, Regina swung around and aimed the crossbow at the heretic’s chest as he drew near. He tilted his head at her with a skeptical look, then started down the carpet aisle towards Aruto and the Nimbus.
“No!” Mullin cried out and struggled to her feet, just as the heretic retrieved his prize. She dropped her crossbow and ran at him. Within a blink, the heretic knocked her in the visor with the sword's hilt, and then when she was doubled over, he buried Nimbus's blade deep into Mullin’s abdomen.
“Get him, Axel! Get him!!” Aruto screeched as he clamoured backwards up the altar steps like some kind of crab – and just as the Alliance sergeant went for the pouch at his hip again, the heretic stomped down onto the hare's stomach, with the tip of Nimbus at his heart.
Aruto's eyes darted past the heretic's shoulder, where he saw the archer laying on her side in the middle of the floor.
“I ... I don't understand,” Aruto said in a quaking voice. “Mullin, get up! You're fine!”
But the fallen archer lay silent and motionless.
“Sir, this heretic managed to slay Farnam and Bale just outside,” said Axel in a trembling voice, eyes glued to the sight of his newly fallen comrade. “It ... it must be true. What Uriost said about that sword!”
Aruto's eyes flicked to meet the heretic's. “I believed Nimbus’s power was just a legend until today,” he rasped.
“Indeed,” the fox agreed, and sank the first inch of the Blade of the Unicorn into the hare's body. “Where is General Uriost going to next?”
Aruto tilted his head back with a loud yelp. Then, grunting and wheezing behind gritted teeth, he looked back down at the cold steel sticking out of his chest plate. Don't!! Please – she's going to Syreen! Please!!” He grappled at the blade with both paws, and let out a shriek when the heretic penetrated deeper.
“Send Lieutenant Artois my regards,” the heretic said in a low voice.
The Alliance sergeant let out a short gurgle, and then went limp against the altar steps.
“How convenient,” the heretic mused, and then withdrew Nimbus from Aruto’s body. “Syreen is on the way to Garia.”
Regina swallowed hard, despite the dry and bitter taste in her mouth. The rank stench of death that clouded the Temple made her head start to spin. She dropped the crossbow and found herself in great need to sit and let her head stop spinning.
“Leave,” the heretic said with his back still turned.
At first Regina thought the skilled and ruthless hooded swordsman was speaking to her, but she realized that the heretic’s words were to the remaining Alliance soldier, who had enough sense to recover the crossbow during Regina's haze but now remained rigid with fright.
“Leave this place,” the heretic said again. “Let the Alliance believe I slew you today. Exile yourself and start a new life.”
“Y – yes!” the grunt nodded. He let the crossbow clatter to his footpaws and made an unceremonious retreat out of the Temple, where he disappeared into the depths of the Stone Zephyr and Altas Forest, never to be seen again.
“You're gonna just let him go?” Regina rasped, and looked back at the heretic, who wiped off Nimbus's blade with the skunk’s fabric belt.
The heretic looked at her with lips parted to answer, but he didn't say anything. The fox re-sheathed Nimbus into its scabbard, and regarded Sergeant Aruto's corpse for a moment.
“What is it?” Regina asked from where she sat slumped against one of the Temple pews. She watched with hazy eyes while the fox dropped to one knee and fiddled around with the small leather pouch at Aruto’s hip. He retrieved what looked like a chunk of grey-coloured glass that had been broken off of something. The heretic squinted at the grey shard, and then slung off his giant camping pack and stuck the treasure inside one of the side-pockets.
“What is it?” Regina asked again.
The heretic climbed back to his footpaws and headed up to the altar. He grabbed General Uriost's saddlebag, and with some hesitation, took hold of the Crystal of Wind in both paws and slid it back inside.
“It isn't safe to leave the Crystal here,” the fox finally replied. “The Alliance will be back to retrieve it as soon as they've heard about today's massacre.” He slung the now-hefty saddlebag back around his shoulders, along with his large pack, and turned to face a shocked and confused Regina.
Regina shook her head to try and stave off her dizziness. When she opened her eyes, she found her gaze upon the body of the archer, who lay on her side in fetal position near the pews at the far side of the Temple.
“...You killed her,” the skunk murmured. “...She was just doing her job. They all were...”
“In war, death sees no difference in gender, age, or caste,” said the heretic in a dark voice as he passed Regina on his way to the Temple doors. He picked up the walking staff and tossed it by her.
“So it's war you're looking for, huh?” Regina asked. She took the staff and used it to help her stand.
“This war started long before your birth, skunk,” he heretic said after he reached the open entrance that looked out into the valley of the Stone Zephyr. He placed a paw against the door frame and leaned heavily against it with a long sigh. “A war many fought against and succumbed to. A war I wish I could have stopped when I initially had the chance.”
He shook his head and looked across the cliff face, to the wind-blown forest in the distance. The neigh of one of the neglected Alliance horses echoed through the air.
Regina raked some hair out of her eyes. She fought hard against the urge to look around at the number of corpses that littered the floor of what was supposed to be a house of worship. She closed her eyes as soon as they started to well up with tears.
“You’re wrong, by the way,” the heretic said.
“Huh? What are you talking about?”
“You were wrong before.” The heretic looked at her over his shoulder. “The Alliance is bound by Doblah to honour and serve Zoot Lablanche’s law – not Mother Azna’s.”
Regina stared at him in silence, but her wide and confused eyes said everything.
“There's a bridge not far from here that leads across to that other path in the forest,” the fox then stated. “Come on. If we leave now, we can make camp just past Keeto before moonlight. In the morning we'll head to Condor, where we can get a ship to Syreen.”
Regina's heart throbbed with hope – there was an Alliance outpost in Keeto, just like in Altas. She wondered if she could get untangled from this mess between the heretic and The Alliance if they arrested him as soon as they passed through Keeto's gates.
The fox eyed Regina coolly as the warm gale of the Stone Zephyr flapped at the loose ends of his cloak.
“See if that woman archer's armour fits you,” he said. “There's an Alliance outpost in Keeto that we need to get past.”
Regina's shoulders slumped with heavy defeat.

~

A large, burly, human fist swung its thick sausage-sized pointer finger back and forth in tune with Beethoven’s Allegro con Brio, which played from a hidden speaker somewhere in the large-windowed office. The curtains were drawn to keep the outside light out. The only source of light in the otherwise darkened room was a small lamp on the Man’s large oak desk.
There was a gentle knock and the door into his office creaked open. He listened as quiet footpaws drew near.
“I have returned, Master.” The translated voice through the buds in his ears crackled under light static from the translator around his neck. He was both relieved and annoyed to hear her weak voice that tried so hard to prove herself stronger than she really was.
“Report,” he ordered, finger still swaying in time with the music.
“He’s got an accomplice now – a female skunk. Additional troops have been stationed outside of Garia, in case he shows up during the engineer conference on Thursday.”
“Good,” he murmured, and then said aloud into the device around his neck which translated his native tongue into the Vidian language, Sa’suiden, and vice-versa, “The last thing I need is for him to steal an airship and cannon blast this castle and the entire continent with it.”
Prime Minister Zoot Lablanche swiveled around in his chair to meet his youngest though most loyal soldier of the Alliance Army. “Kira,” he murmured to the orange tabby cat kneeling at the bottom of carpeted steps up to his desk.
“Yes, my Master?” she asked with head bowed.
“Look at me,” Zoot rasped in a low voice.
With reverent hesitation, the tabby lifted her chin to face her master who was cast in the shadows of the dark office with only the orange glow of the desk lamp offering a source of light.
Zoot leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. He reached up to the translator around his neck and tweaked the knob at the side to advance the frequency level. He turned off the classical music that he alone on Vida had any knowledge of, and headed down the steps below his desk. He rubbed the crown of Kira’s head as he sauntered past, to the large curtain-drawn window at one side of his office.
“I’d like you to take a unit of soldiers to Syreen,” he said. “It is clear that our little friend is a sharp burr in our side. I’m concerned for the safety of Vidians everywhere, considering how dangerous he is. I have a dark feeling that this heretic will try to ambush Lieutenant Yaschire and his unit during their trek to the Dead Wood. If anything is to happen, I need you to intervene.”
“Yessir,” Kira nodded. She chewed on her lips and looked at Prime Minister Lablanche. He stared back at her.
“What is it, Kira?” he asked.
“Master … I – I don’t want to sound out of line, but…” Kira swallowed hard. “Sir, may I please stand?”
“I’m not stopping you.”
Kira rose to her footpaws, and respectfully bowed her head. “Master, why do we need the Crystals? Aren’t they supposed to keep Vida in balance?”
Zoot tugged back the golden-tapered drapes and gazed out into the dark, jagged mountains and cliffs below Castle Leblanche that riddled every corner of Doblah. In the far distance, he saw the peak-roofed houses of an old small town where the Alliance barracks stood.
He sighed, and closed his eyes. “I need you to trust me, Kira. Do you trust me?”
“Wh – of course, Master! Yes, I trust you with all my life! Please – I’m sorry if I was out of line, I didn’t mean…”
“Continue your trust in me, Kira,” Prime Minister Lablanche said. “Know that what I do is for the best for Vida. You are dismissed.”
Kira stared at him for a long while. She genuflected and left the office without a further word.
Zoot watched her pull the heavy wooden doors shut behind her. He gazed back out the large window, and small sneer formed across his human lips.
As long as the heretic can’t get to an airship, Vida is at rest, he thought.
But as long as the heretic held Nimbus, rest was no option for the Alliance.



4. The Retainers

The stifling and moist heat around Regina’s face had become unbearable. Sweat stung her eyes, and through her visor she could barely see the dark forest path past the horse she rode.
She and the heretical fox – who was dressed in the armour of the other felled archer – galloped towards Keeto’s gates. The two Alliance guards standing at either side of the city entrance watched them in mid-murmur under the light of the torch mounts above them.
A thick bead of sweat slithered down Regina's temple as they approached. 
The heretical fox tightened his grasp on the reins of Regina's stolen Alliance horse. She had never ridden before in her life, and so was instructed to hold onto the saddle horn and pretend she was gravely injured.
“Where is your commander?” asked the guard on the heretical fox's left. Regina swallowed hard when she noticed the other soldier – a border collie from the looks of his tail – eyeing her through his visor.
The heretical fox passed the soldier both his and Regina's stolen identification slips from a hip pouch. “We're Sergeant Aruto's men! The heretic ambushed us at the Stone Zephyr – the Sergeant ordered me and Mullin back to request additional units!”
Both guards went ice-cold alert.
Regina's eyes flicked to the saddlebag on the other horse – among the heretical fox’s clothing was that stolen white-hilted sword. If only the heretical fox had the sense to tell the guards he had it ... maybe they would summon an Alliance airship straight from Doblah and pick him up.
Regina’s gauntlet-covered paws clenched around the saddle horn with apprehension as the thought looped in her head.
“Right, okay,” nodded the soldier on the heretic's left, and gave him back the identification slips.
“Ride on in, soldiers,” the border collie said. “Alert Sergeant Sabina at the outpost.”
“For Doblah,” the heretical fox bowed his head in gratitude and respect. The false gesture made Regina’s stomach burn.
The heretical fox gave a tug on both sets of reins, and the two horses started through Keeto’s gates. Regina gave an obedient nod and muttered, “Doblah,” when she met the empty, dominant stare of the border collie's horned, metal face as she passed.
While they trotted along the main street, bathed in the shadows cast by the market’s apartment lights around them, Regina could smell the faint aroma of cheese-kissed pasta, spices, and meat-and-tomato sauces.
Her stomach growled.
“Yelp for help, and you'll regret it,” the heretical fox murmured. He then offered a swordsman officer in the street a brotherly nod.
The tinny echo of “...you'll regret it” sang in Regina's ears.
They rode past Keeto's Alliance outpost, onward toward the centre of town where the smell of pasta and sauce only grew stronger.
Regina saw a restaurant where the smell might have come from. Across the street from it was an inn with an attached pub.
They trotted straight through the rest of town without stopping.

~

General Uriost raked her headfur as she sat down at Sergeant Sabina’s desk with her horned helmet cradled in her lap. Despite her low commanding rank, she was permitted such a luxury with a higher soldier. 
She had returned to Keeto later that night after having her men arrested at the Altas outpost for giving into the heretic’s demands.
“I’ve heard no word from Sergeant Aruto directly,” Sabina said; the helmetless feline sergeant sat down as well. “...but his two archers were through here a little while ago.”
“Where are they now?” Uriost asked. 
“Charger and Bastion told them to see me, but they never showed.”
“Have you sent additional units regardless?”
Sabina offered a shrug and poured them both wine from the bottle in her desk drawer.
“You didn’t?!” Uriost felt herself rise, but actually hadn’t.
“I can’t do anything if I’m not requested to directly – in this case, by the archers. My signature has to be on the request access sheet,” Sabina said, tapping her desk with her index digit, “and then verbally archived by Chancellor Domini in Mecia over radio, before my men can do anything like that.” She shrugged again. “Just in case my guards are lying, for whatever reason.”
What a stupid regulation, Uriost thought, cringing behind her flat and professional face. She knew however that request access sheets were a safety measure against soldiers going rogue – not that that had ever happened in the past, aside from...
“And you didn’t think it suspicious two of Rudolph’s archers never showing up when they said they would?” she asked.
Sabina shrugged. “I’ll let Doblah know about it tonight if I don’t hear from Aruto by oh-hundred.”
“Fine. In that case, if tonight Aruto doesn’t alert you about the recovery, I’ll go back there tomorrow to check things out on my way to Syreen.”
“Not even you can get a request approved that fast, I’m afraid,” Sabina chuckled from behind her wine glass. “At least, not with your rank. Procedure is procedure.”
Uriost narrowed her eyes at Sabina. “Sign that form. Now.”

~

The warmth of the fire brushed against Regina’s bare cheek as she watched him prepare a pot of an uncooked stew made from rations found in the forest.
Their eyes met for a second as the heretical fox hung the pot from the bonfire’s spit.
With his helmet now removed, and no hood to cloak his youthful face, Regina wondered how old the charcoal-furred fox was.
Regina found it odd that aside from verbal threat the heretic hadn’t been abusive to her – like she assumed any other vandal heart would have been.
He leaned back on one arm with a twig between his lips. Beside him were the saddle bags containing their other clothes, the Nimbus sword, and the Crystal of Wind.
What did he mean when he said the Wind Crystal wasn’t safe in the Temple? Regina thought as she continued to watch him. “What were Uriost’s soldiers doing with the Crystal, anyhow?”
Regina went rigid. She had meant to think the question.
The heretical fox stared at her past the pot cooking over the bonfire. The twig at the corner of his muzzle slowly gyrated up and down between his teeth.
“I’m sorry.” Regina dropped her gaze.
“They were taking it back to Doblah.”
Regina looked at the heretical fox again, surprised he had answered.
“Lablanche wants it,” he said.
 “I’m really confused about how we didn’t get stopped in Keeto,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“The two archers were a daschund and a tabby – we’re a fox and a skunk.”
“Alliance IDs don’t distinguish species,” the heretic said.
“Why’s that?” Regina asked.
“Lablanche is what’s called a “human” – the only one of his kind – at least, on Vida. I guess where he comes from humans all look the same, so the “species” thing was just an oversight when he first established Vida’s police force.”
“So basically nobody, outside of the squad at the Stone Zephyr, would know what animals the archers were?” Regina asked.
“That’s right,” the heretic nodded.
“Regina heard the joints in her gauntlet creak as she flexed her paw. She wondered if this method of “travel” was something the heretical fox was used to, to avoid arrest.
“Alliance loyalists are too brainwashed to betray Doblah, and no one ever assumed soldiers would get killed,” the heretic went on. “The species thing is a loophole long-forgotten in Doblah.”
Regina remembered the carnage the heretic had unleashed earlier that day.
“But...” she started.
A branch snapped nearby.
The heretical fox’s paw went for the Alliance hunting knife at his waist.
“What is it?” Regina asked.
There was a loud rustle, and the skunk was then horrified to see a small army of rodents seep out of the foliage and surround the campsite with staffs and daggers pointed. The rats stood half the size of Regina and the heretic – give or take – and all wore ratty-looking clothes.
“We thought we smelled Alliance manure,” declared the leader – a grubby, orange-furred rat. “Lost your outpost, spit-shines?”
Regina flashed her frantic eyes to the heretical fox, who had risen to his footpaws with gauntlet on the knife hilt strapped at his side.
“We’re not a threat to you,” he said to them in a calm voice after spitting away his twig. “It will be a bloody night if you insist robbing us.”
“Any sucker of Lablanche’s heel is a threat on his own!” snarled the lead rat.
“I don’t want to kill any of you,” the heretical fox warned and tugged back the hilt to reveal the blade’s edge, which glinted in the firelight.
“Then our killing you will be at half effort!” the lead rat exclaimed over the jeers and snickers of his fellow bandits.
Just as two rats from the side jumped the heretic, he clobbered one between the ears the other in the jaw.
Regina twisted a footpaw as she fell away from the rock she sat on to avoid a rat that tried grabbing her from behind. She snatched the heretical fox’s walking staff from the dirt beside the rock and used it to ward off the rat before he grappled the gnarled and bulbous end and wrestled back.
The heretic leapt over the fire – knocking over the pot and spit – and punted the rat away before swinging an elbow into the forehead of the leader.
“Stop this!” he commanded before the final two rats were upon him and Regina. The skunk looked up at the outline of the heretic, silhouetted against the bonfire’s flames, and realized the Alliance hunting knife was still in the fox’s grasp – unstained.
The bandits immediately backed off when they saw their unconscious leader laying spread eagle in the dirt.
The rat the heretic had kicked off to the far side struggled to its paws and knees, dry heaving.
“Take the mutton and go,” the heretic ordered them. He pointed to the main path about a yard away from the campsite. “There’s a stream ahead your comrade can use to rinse his muzzle with if he vomits on the way.”
The rats stared at him, frightened, until the command registered. They gathered their comrades as well as the sack of cubed mutton the heretic had used for the stew – and fled.
With the heretic distracted, Regina climbed to her feet with the walking staff in-hand. As soon as the bandits left, she swung the staff hard into the heretical fox’s back, causing him to stumble forward.
Regina sent the heretic to paw and knee with another swift strike, and then made an escape to the tree where the tied horses screeched and bucked, still riled up from the failed ambush.
A loud chop cut the air by Regina’s ear, and she stopped dead when she came face-to-face with the end of a knife’s leather handle sticking out of the tree just off her left shoulder.
“Get back here,” the heretic rumbled.
Slowly, Regina turned in her tracks to meet the fox’s dark gaze. He lowered his throwing arm.
“P – please, don’t kill me...” Regina whimpered as tears started to well in her eyes.
The heretical fox stared at her.
His piercing grey eyes stabbed her deeply.
“Don’t tempt me to,” he said, and dropped his gaze to the spilled pool of partly-boiled water, mushrooms, and cubed mutton. He slid the heel of his field boot across the damp dirt.
Regina trudged back to the fire. She stood there awkwardly watching the heretic as he prepared a fresh meal with whatever didn’t spill out of the pot when he knocked it over.
Dinner was sparse that night, but it to Regina’s tummy, it was a grand feast.

She didn’t sleep that night; even long after the bonfire died out and the heretical fox seemingly went to bed. Regina lay in the dirt, curled up under the heretic’s cloak as she gazed across the small campsite.
The heretical fox lay against his camping pack with legs crossed and paws on his stomach. The shadows cast across his face made it impossible to tell if he was asleep or not.
But Regina felt his eyes on her.
They stared at each other in silence for a long while.
Finally, the skunk broke the stillness in the air. “Can I ask you something?”
The heretical fox didn’t respond or move from his position.
Regina pushed up and sat leaning on one arm. “The rats earlier ... why didn’t you kill them, like you killed the Alliance soldiers?”
The heretic still didn’t answer.
Regina fell silent for a while, but the thought kept looping in her mind. And then suddenly she remembered something – a term the skunk hadn’t heard since she was a little girl.
“...Are you a – a Retainer?” she asked.
“The Retainers have been disbanded for more than a decade. No one’s stupid enough to start up a rebellion like that again,” the heretical fox said. “Not as long as Doblah’s eye is on all of Vida.”
“Isn’t that the point of a rebellion, though?” Regina asked. “...To fight back against oppressive regimes?”
“Maybe. A long time ago, anyway. People are too afraid, or brainwashed, or both now. Like I said, no one in their right mind would be brave enough these days to start a war against Prime Minister Lablanche.”
“What about you, though?” Regina asked.
“Don’t concern yourself with me, peasant skunk,” the heretic rumbled.
Regina fell silent again.
After a while, the fox stared at her and said, “Not many people know of the Retainers – at least, no one is willing to talk about them publically, anyway. I’m surprised a girl your age has even heard of them.”
“I – uh ... my parents were Retainers,” she explained. “...They died when rogues razed Altas ... years and years ago.”
“Your parents were Retainers, and yet your boyfriend works for Doblah,” said the heretical fox behind a scoff.
Regina looked at him, bemused.
“You talk of rebellions and thwarting oppressive regimes, yet you don’t really know what the Retainers stood for,” the heretical fox stated. “Do you, skunk.”
“It was a long time ago,” Regina said. “I don’t remember much about my parents except for that. Being a Retainer was important to them.”
“How old were you when your parents were slain?” the heretic asked.
Regina flinched at the question. She thought about the last time she saw her father, before both he and her mother were murdered by vandals in Altas’s battle-torn streets.
“I ... I was about six. I turned seven three months later,” she murmured.
“Your parents would spit on you, knowing how you’ve betrayed them now,” the heretical fox told her.
“You don’t know anything about my parents!” Regina yelled at him before she realized she did.
The heretical fox drummed his paw digits against the Alliance chest plate he wore. He then pushed up on his arms and Regina thought he was going to do something to her – but the fox only retrieved a wooden pipe and a pouch of ground tobacco from his camping pack.
The heretical fox then leaned forward with legs crossed and prepared his pipe. Regina watched the flicker of the small matchstick light against his muzzle as he dipped the flame into the pipe and puffed.
“I assume you get your strength from your father,” the heretic mused. “I’m a dangerous fox – I’ve killed many – no other hostage would have dared to strike me, even with my back turned, like you did earlier.” He leaned back against the camping pack and stared at Regina with the smoking pipe at the corner of his lips.
“There never used to be a government before Lablanche came, twenty years ago,” the heretic started to explain. “Not many remember these days – and those who do are very old now – but a very long time ago, Vida was divided up into five separate tribes: Earth, Wind, Water, Fire, and Spirit.
“According to the Aznain faith, these five tribes were all given the responsibility of looking after a Crystal that harnessed one of five elements keeping the planet in balance.”
Regina nodded. “Yes, I vaguely remember this story from my parents. There are worship books at my hospital for anyone who requests them.”
The heretic chomped away on the end of his pipe and said, “The very role your parents played as Retainers was to keep these native Vidian beliefs alive among the people. You don’t remember well because school and Alliance propaganda has told you otherwise. Please, let me finish.”
Regina nodded again and went silent.
“According to history – as you should know from school – Zoot Lablanche appeared on Vida from the holy land, ‘Terra’,” the heretic went on.
Regina nodded in reply.
 “Because of his vast knowledge, the considered ‘primitive’ Vidians thought Lablanche a messiah, sent by Mother Azna,” the heretic continued. “He offered to help Vida become a more advanced civilization – the civilization that you see today.
“However, there were some Vidians who thought Lablanche a threat – a poison in the waters, so to speak. Those who feared that the more simpler-minded Vidians would forget Mother Azna’s teachings in their blind loyalty to Lablanche united in secret to fight back against Doblah.
“This small group became an unofficial militia made up of farmers, herdsmen, shop keepers ... men, women – whole families – who fought against Lablanche’s seemingly unnecessary material offerings.”
The heretic went quiet for a little while as he refilled his pipe, lit it again, and took a couple of strong puffs off the end.
“The Retainers were few, but they were strong,” the heretic said. “...However, they were not strong enough to thwart Lablanche’s power over Vidian minds. Many Retainers gave up and sought solace under Doblah’s gaze. Others were rounded up and slaughtered by bandits.”
Regina shivered with revulsion.
“...And yet others retreated into the depths of each Crystal Region,” the heretic said, “where they formed small, peaceful, communes and became devout and silent worshippers of the Crystals. Temple Keepers.”
The bodies of the robed animals from the Temple in the Stone Zephyr flashed in Regina’s mind. She closed her eyes and shuddered deeper than before.
 “What makes you think I’ve disrespected my parents?” the skunk asked.
The heretical fox took a long puff off his pipe and said, “Your parents – along with countless others – sacrificed their lives to protect Vida from the threat of Doblah. People like you believe Lablanche has always ruled over these lands; that’s what you’re taught in school.”
“You’re saying my parents were anarchists?” Regina demanded.
The heretical fox let out a sharp chuckle.
“You can’t tell me that even after all these years, there isn’t a tug in the back of your mind that wonders if Doblah and the Alliance are corrupt,” he said. “You’re the daughter of Retainers, after all – even if you don’t remember much of that time in your life, you were still consciously exposed to your parents’ opinions – otherwise, you wouldn’t have warned me against attacking Alliance troops – twice – nor would you have attacked one of them to save me, for whatever reason.”
Regina once again flinched – but because she knew it was true.
“You saved my life – that’s why I helped you,” she countered. 
“Why did you follow me, anyway?” the fox asked. “I’m nothing to you. I’m a vandal heart according to the law in these lands.”
“I … I don’t know,” she murmured. Her eyes fell upon the saddlebag next to the heretic. The bag outlined creases of the stolen Wind Crystal, inside.
...Evil brews deep in the mountains … Only one of a pure heart may bring us all together … to seal peace forevermore on Vida…
Those words, whispered in her ears by the disembodied voice ... they echoed in Regina’s memory. She didn’t know what to make of the voice, or if she should even say anything about it to the heretical fox.
“Basic instinct.”
“Huh?” Regina looked at him.
“Basic instinct,” the heretic repeated. “That’s why you followed me, I suppose. Basic instinct made you trail me after the skirmish in the forest, and then ultimately led you to the truth – to the carnage the Alliance is willing to wield against innocents to attain whatever they need for papa Lablanche.”
He dragged General Uriost’s saddlebag into his lap and withdrew the Wind Crystal from within. The light of the full moon glinted in the deep cleft along the Crystal’s surface.
“What’s that crack in it?” Regina asked.
The heretic rummaged through his pack and withdrew the chunk of grey-coloured glass he had found in Aruto’s possession. He leveled the small shard with the equally small cleft in the Wind Crystal, and put them together.
It was a perfect fit.
“I don’t understand,” the fox murmured.
“Do you think that one general – General Uriost – or one of her soldiers dropped the Crystal when they stole it, and the piece broke off?” Regina asked.
“Why would Aruto have the shard, then?” the heretic wondered. “I wonder if this Crystal shard has to do with the wind magic he used…”
He put the Crystal back inside the saddlebag, and slipped the shard back into his camping pack. When the heretic then noticed Regina shifting his cloak back around her armour-clad shoulders to keep warm, he rekindled the bonfire.
“Can I ask you something else?” Regina leaned forward.
“What is it?”
“You mentioned earlier how the reason the Alliance doesn’t keep track of its soldiers’ species is because nobody thought they would go rogue or get killed, but...”
Regina paused. When she found her courage, she looked the heretic right in the eyes.
“You threw a knife at one of the soldiers, and then got hit in the shoulder with an arrow,” she said. “The both of you should have been heavily wounded – if not dead – but you were both all right ... but when you attacked with that stolen sword...” She trailed off, and then added, “And then there was that – I guess it was a magic spell or something that you cast.”
The heretic’s face grew very dark.
“It looked like a beam of light,” Regina clarified. “Back at the Stone Zephyr, you cast it against the archer you threw the knife at. Right after you told me to—”
“You really are blind to the world around you,” the heretic cut her off. “I told you – this war I wage with Doblah is no business of yours.”
“I ask because I’m a nurse in Altas.”
“Stay out of it. When we reach Garia, you can go on your way – live life with your pig boyfriend normally, like before.”
 Regina wrinkled her brow.
“So what if Dwain works for the government?” she demanded. “It doesn’t mean anything to him other than money.”
“You think so?” the heretical fox challenged Regina with a wry smile. “It doesn’t take much to be manipulated.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’ll see soon enough once we get to Garia. How much is your Dwain willing to divulge about his work life?”
“What’s your war with Doblah?” Regina suddenly shot at him. “It’s more than about that stupid sword you stole – that I know. Why is the Alliance so afraid of you, and why do they want the Crystal of Wind?”
“I’ll cut your tongue out if you don’t shut your muzzle,” barked the heretic.
Regina stared at him in silence.
“Get some sleep,” he ordered. “We have a long way to go in the morning, and I’m not going to babysit you if you fall off your horse and break something because you’re overtired from being up all night wondering why the world around you works the way it does.”
With that, the heretical fox stamped out the bonfire.
The campsite was pitched in blackness.

~

The morning sunlight spilled upon the corpses in a long yellow triangle that widened as the grunt officers pushed open the doors into the Temple of the Wind Crystal.
General Uriost slowly made her way up the last few steps behind the soldiers she borrowed from Sergeant Sabina’s outpost in Keeto. When she entered the Temple, her eyes fell upon two extra bodies among the Temple Keepers that her platoon had dispatched earlier the day before. 
She didn’t know who the naked orange tabby was, but the grey hare laying sprawled on the altar steps, where the sun cascade the most from the open doors, was wearing Alliance gear with a red cape that was entangled around one leg.
Sergeant Aruto. Uriost’s eyes narrowed.
The young wolf’s hard-set eyes scanned up the steps, to the altar top as she heard footpaws coming up the steps behind her,
It was bare.
Under her visor, searing heat burned Uriost’s cheeks.
“So he’s been here, then,” she heard a voice above her ear.
The shadow of Commander Blacktail spilled into the triangle of light cast against the interlocked stone floor. He then moved in front of Uriost, his golden cape flapping with each step. She couldn’t see his face, although his rhino-horned visor was up.
“Yes, Commander,” Uriost murmured.
“And you said his two archers came through Keeto last night?”
“They apparently did.”
“But no access request form was filled out and sent to Mecia over radio?”
“No, sir.”
Commander Blacktail stopped at the foot of the altar steps and regarded the bare table of worship.
“That’s inconvenient,” he stated with two paw digits against his relaxed lips.
“Yes, sir.”
“Okay, well – let Doblah know, and I’ll head straight for Durnam this afternoon then, when we get back.”
Uriost looked away from the doorframe and gave a short nod to the swordsman officer in her platoon, so that he could alert the two grunts and three archers from Keeto to prep the horses.
“That’s the only one he has, right?” Commander Blacktail’s voice echoed from inside the door.
Uriost peeked inside and saw him sitting with shoulders relaxed, in the very front pew off to the right-side of the Temple.
“I believe so, sir,” she said.
“All right – let Doblah know that, too. Procedure is procedure.”
Uriost froze, remembering her conversation with Sergeant Sabina.
“Yes, sir,” she said, and started down the steps, back into the stony, pillared, valley floor of the Stone Zephyr.



5. To the Unknown Beyond

“Here he comes!”
“Prime Minister, over here! …Prime Minister!!”
Click. Flash, flash.
Click. Flash, flash, flash.
Zoot shielded his eyes from the cameras on either side of the roped-off entrance to Mecia Hall with two officer grunts at his sides. The loud cheer from when he stepped out of the carriage still rang in his ears. 
Slowly he ascended the steps of Vida’s esteemed and only university, briefly escaping the crowd. Waiting for him at the top of the steps was the raccoon chancellor of Mecia, Anno Domini, dressed in a blue service uniform with a flowing white cape draped around his shoulders.
“Welcome back to Mecia, milord,” Chancellor Domini’s translated voice crackled in Zoot’s ears as the raccoon shook the prime minister’s hand with both paws. 
“Thank you, Anno – come, let’s get inside.”
Chancellor Domini led Zoot and his two Alliance guards into a drawing room inside Mecia Hall. The chancellor immediately headed to the standing bar near the back of the room, by his secretarial desk. He half turned and gestured a sloshing, green bottle at his guest.
“Nothing for me, thanks,” said Zoot, waving a dismissive hand.
The chancellor fixed himself something to drink and met Zoot at the desk. Taking a leisurely sip from his glass, Chancellor Domini sat down and reached for the steno-pad placed off to one corner of the table.
Zoot waved off his grunt officers and seated himself before the raccoon.
“You know about that … incident … from the other night,” he said in a low voice.
Readying the steno-pad, Chancellor Domini leaned forward in his seat with an alert nod.
“I’m going to hold a press conference,” Zoot went on. “Nothing to scare the people – I just want them to be wary of the heretic. Nothing overly specific – just: ‘male, charcoal fox with a white-hilted sword; extremely dangerous. Alert nearest outpost on sight’.”
Chancellor Domini gave another nod as he finished jotting down the last of the request.
“There’s a girl with him now, apparently, but I don’t care about her.”
“I’ll approve and archive the request immediately, milord, and we can set up a public council here in Mecia for you by tonight,” said Chancellor Domini, then took a blank form from his desk drawer and filled out the necessary details.
Zoot’s upper lip curled as he watched the raccoon somehow handle an ink quill with ease – something he still wasn’t yet used to seeing in his five years on Vida, even though the animal did have five digits. The chancellor dotted the final period, then moved on to sign his name at the bottom.
He was sure Anno felt it paranoid that even the prime minister needed to request access from Mecia for anything. However, that regulation wasn’t something Zoot was willing to bypass, even as the planet’s god. He needed the trust of his people.
 “Done,” Chancellor Domini said with a smile, and then slid the filled-out form into a file folder at the other corner of the desk.
“I should probably let you know,” Zoot remembered as he leaned back in his seat, adjusting the frequency level of the translator around his neck, “the heretic has the Wind Crystal, as well.”
Domini froze for a moment – and then went for a second blank form. “Should I make that public, as well, sir?”
“This time, yes.”

~

Dwain gazed out the window into the dark waters below, and a sharp chill went up his spine. For an airship engineer, the hedgehog strangely hated flying – especially over the Gabriel Sea. He didn’t know why. 
It would be a few hours yet until the crew would reach Garia, and Dwain was more than happy to reach land again.
As Dwain passed the telescreen in the room he shared with Sol and Felix, he noticed Prime Minister Lablanche rise to a stand at an ambo, as camera-flashes behind the live feed’s source went off in his face.
“Sit down or get out of the the way!” Sol whined from where he lay on one of the cots.
Dwain murmured an apology and sat down on the edge of the bed Felix occupied; the old hound was curled on his side, snoring like he was bulldozing a whole forest.
“There has been a grave disturbance in the lands to the west,” said Prime Minister Lablanche as soon as the excited reporters calmed down. “Four days ago, the Alliance arrested a lone bandit who was snooping around Doblah Region. Three days ago, the bandit escaped custody and now wreaks havoc all across Vida.”
“Oh no,” Dwain gasped under the explosion of audience chatter over the telescreen.
“It’s about time he said something about it,” Sol ranted.
“Prime Minister, has our planet-wide peace treaty been broken, then?” one of the reporters asked.
“Possibly,” Zoot replied, staring ahead with a hard-set jaw. “I don’t want my people to worry. This blasphemer to Doblah will be found, and he will be executed before a court.”
“What’s he even done that warrants a death sentence, anyway?” Dwain asked Sol from over one shoulder.
“He killed a bunch of Alliance troops on his way outta Doblah, remember?” Sol said.
“No, I mean – what did he do to get arrested in the first place?”
The black-and-brown long-haired feline offered a helpless shrug from where he lay.
Dwain looked back at the telescreen, just as another reporter piped up.
“Prime Minister! Prime Minister, over here! What does this threat mean to the safety of Vidians everywhere?”
“Everything is under control,” Prime Minister Lablanche assured. “As of now, I have sent additional Alliance units to the various outposts across each continent. While this blasphemer to Doblah is armed and incredibly dangerous – I can assure you there is nothing to fear. I will not put my people in harm’s way.”
Dwain went to get a drink from the standing bar on the other side of the room.
He said the bandit was in the west … Does he mean Galheist Region? The hedgehog wondered. Regina instantly came to mind. Galheist wasn’t large at all, made up of only four major boroughs: Keeto, Altas, Condor, and Padora; as well as Sharktapus Beach and the desert of Menyard.
Dwain looked at the clock hanging above the telescreen. Regina’s day shift would have just ended two hours before. He went to the phone and dialed Regina’s number – but no one picked up.
A dark feeling overcame Dwain, but he shook his head to dispel his worry.
She’s fine, he told himself. She’s probably just out, or in the bath, or something.
“Prime Minister Lablanche! Do you know who this escaped bandit is?” asked a third reporter on the telescreen.
Prime Minister Lablanche went quiet – and after a moment, he leaned over the ambo with hands clutching either side, and said, “…A heretic, of course.”

~

In the midnight sky, a purple haze crept across the vast wheat fields while quiet gallops in the distance filled the ears of little Regina Lepue. The skunk turned and saw the cavalry of red-and black armoured soldiers through the rickety, weather-worn wooden posts of the six-foot high fence that lined the village perimeter.
“Regina, get back here!” Regina felt a hard tug at her arm, and she was yanked to security against her mother’s hip, just as a cloud of frantic townsmen raced past, fumbling for the swords and maces at their hips.
“I wanna go with Daddy!” Regina protested. She broke free from her mother’s clutch, and ran after the group of armed animals just as another dozen came from around the block, yelling and shouting commands at each other before they passed by the two skunks in a hurry.
“Regina, wait!” her mother called after her, but Regina was already merged with the others.
Regina found her father near the entrance to Altas Village.
Thomas Lepue gazed out past the village’s wide-open gate, with sword held at his side. As the townsmen rushed past him through the gates and into the night, Regina’s father looked over at his six-year-old daughter. A small smile of relief formed on his otherwise fretful face.
“Daddy!” Regina shouted. She started to take a few steps towards him, but Thomas stopped her with an extended paw. The sound of the armoured cavalry was almost upon Altas Village.
Slowly, his sword-arm rose, pointed out past the open gate.
Regina felt the cool wind against the fur upon her tender cheek.
“Gloria, take Regina out of the village,” Regina’s father said as soon as the girl’s mother caught up. “There’s nothing for us here now.”
“Thomas, I’m not—” Gloria started to say.
Regina became distracted by streams of orange light that arched in the air, towards Altas. At first, she thought they were fireworks, until they rained down upon the streets. As townsfolk around the skunk family were felled by the aerial onslaught, Regina watched in shock as thatched rooftops surrounding her burst into flame.
Next thing Regina knew, the town was filled with the red-and-black soldiers – shadows coming out of the night – crossing weapons with every able-body in Altas Village.
“Daddy!” Regina wailed when they became separated by the in-town skirmish. She watched her father block the attack of an arbitrary soldier in the crowd. Her father thrust forward, but the bandit parried the attack, and with brute force, leaned against Thomas with an arm. Regina saw a quick flash of the soldier’s sword thrust down overtop her father, but before she could witness his fate, the backs of two other fighters met, blocking her view.
“Thomas!!” Regina’s mother screamed, and before Regina could rush between the two men to chase after her father, she felt her mother’s grip around her tiny arm, and was ruggedly dragged backwards. In a brash attempt to once again break free from her mother however, Regina tripped over her own feet and tumbled into the damp street, where she knocked her head against the cold, wet, cobblestone. 

Regina awoke with a start.
A moment passed before the skunk realized where she was again. She rolled onto her back and gazed up into the dull morning sky, hidden by the shadow of crisscrossed tree branches overhead. Regina clenched her eyes tight, and after she found her bearings, rolled onto her other side and saw the heretic across the way, quietly packing away the dinner supplies and the bonfire spit into his open camping pack. Beside her was a bowl of grey goop.
“What time is it?” Regina croaked and pushed up up on her arms. The heretic’s cloak slid down her chest plate and into her lap.
“You’re awake finally,” rumbled the heretic without looking up from his work. “Get some porridge in your belly. That bowlful is cold now, but it’ll have to do. We have a lot of ground to cover before tonight.”
Regina eyed him warily for a moment before she looked back down at the bowl of porridge. She took the bowl into both gauntlets, and started to dab two metal-clad digits into the substance, until she realized what she was doing. Regina took off the gauntlet and resumed.
The porridge was freezing cold and like mortar down her throat, but Regina said nothing as she ate in silence.
The events from the previous day flashed in her still-groggy mind, and all she could think about was Dwain and Garia. Regina hadn’t been off of the continent of Galheist Region since she went to school in Mecia when she was far younger. That had been the only time she had ridden in an Alliance airship, albeit with a number of others who were at the ripe age for compulsory two-year education at the Capitol.
It had taken Regina only a day by the sky-vessel to reach Mecia, which was on the far east of Castor Region.
Syreen, in Lylia Region, was far closer geographically, but Regina dreaded the thought of how long it would take her and the heretic to cross the Gabriel Sea by mere boat.

They trekked, still under the disguise of Alliance archers, over the vast meadows and lush fields that lay beyond Keeto. Regina didn’t know where the heretic was taking her now. She wracked her brain, trying to think of the continent’s major landmarks aside from its five townships.
She thought back to the conversation by the bonfire the night before.
 “You can’t tell me that even after all these years, there isn’t a tug in the back of your mind that wonders ... You’re the daughter of Retainers, after all,”
She reflected on the heretic’s words to her.
“...Otherwise, you wouldn’t have warned me against attacking Alliance troops – twice – nor would you have attacked one of them to save me, for whatever reason.”
Basic instinct.
That was the heretic’s theory as to why Regina followed him to the Temple of the Wind Crystal the day before. Was he right? Was there something inside the skunk, unconsciously driving her to do such a thing? Such an illogical thing she never in her right mind would have done before?
Regina thought about Dwain again. He wouldn’t have known about her being a hostage yet. She wondered what the conversation between them at Garia would be like. It would be a relief to see him – even under such awful circumstances.
After a full twenty-four hours with the fox, Regina still didn’t know the heretic’s identity other than his ethnicity. She was too afraid to ask him his name, even though she had been strong enough to both beat him with his own staff, and then yell at him later on for disrespecting the memory of her parents.
Even if I did ask him, he wouldn’t be stupid enough to tell me, she thought begrudgingly.
The hospital.
Regina’s chest tightened every time she thought about her job. She should have been at work that day. The thought looped in her mind countless times during her steady and silent ride with the heretic.
Never once as a nurse at Altas Hospital did Regina miss a day’s shift.
She hoped that one of her colleagues would have the sense to realize that, and alert the Alliance outpost in Altas.
Maybe if the soldiers saw that she wasn’t at her home at Sharktapus Beach, a missing report would be made public.
Then again, Regina thought, if that one soldier from the Wind Temple – the one the heretic didn’t kill – went back to Keeto or Altas and let Doblah know what was going on … maybe she was marked as a wanted criminal now, too.

~

They came upon Port City Condor long after the full moon’s ascension.
What waited for them through the town gates bathed in the blue of night, were long silhouettes of stone buildings with thatched roofs, spanning down a hill with the moon’s glittering visage rippling in the vast, black sea, lapping beyond.    
For a moment, Regina wondered if the city was abandoned as she gazed sleepily upon the darkened windows and emptied streets.
“They’ve all gone to bed,” she said aloud, and wondered what time it was. As a child, her parents had taught her how to read time by the position of the sun and moon, but Regina had forgotten all that now, with the advent of clock stores since Prime Minister Lablanche’s formed Vida’s current government.
With a tug on her horse’s rein, the heretic led Regina down the winding streets of the hilled port city. There was an encampment just before Condor’s shipping docks that, to Regina’s tired eyes, looked like a cluster of green circus tents.
Only that part of town saw life, as animals dressed in Alliance military armour stood at each glowing entry. A circle of four grunts sat around a dirt mound outside of the lights’ gaze, playing a game of cards with their maces leaned against an out-of-sight tree.
“You’re not taking us there to get a boat, are you?!” Regina suddenly hissed in wide-awake realization.
“Clam it, before they hear you!” hissed the heretic in a low voice. “I have the archers’ slips, remember? It’s the only way – their outpost also runs the docks here. Besides, they won’t arrest you in any case. Nobody knows who you are except for those slain in Altas Forest.”
“You don’t know that!” Regina insisted, more about the docks than her own identity – although that was also a thorn of strong contention in her mind as well.
The skunk’s shoulders lurched forward when the heretic gave a harder tug on her horse’s reins. As she and the heretic neared the Alliance outpost, the two grunts that guarded the main tent came to meet them.
The heretic showed one of the grunts the stolen ID slips from his pouch. “We need to get across to Syreen, in the Earth Region.”
“I’ll ask Sergeant Misty to let you through,” said the guard, and slipped inside the main tent with the identification.
“Those are some mighty scrapes you got there, soldiers,” the second guard nodded at the dents and deep cracks in the armour Regina and the heretic wore.
Regina brushed a hand over the long cleft in her chest plate, where the heretic had lobbed a hunting knife at the archer who had worn it before.
“Did you hear about what happened to Sergeant Aruto?” Regina heard one of the grunts from the shadowy circle of card-players say. “Found dead in some shrine in the Altas Forest, with a swordsman and couple o’ archers.”
“Doblah find the beggar who did it, and slit his gullet,” said another of the four grunts as he laid a card between them. Know who did it?”
“We were ambushed by bandits on our way here,” said the heretic to the guard before him and Regina. “We taught them though, didn’t we, Mullin?”
“Huh?” Regina blinked. “Oh … yeah…”
The first guard returned from the main tent and granted the disguised rogues’ access to Syreen.
The card-players’ voices faded as Regina and the heretical fox trotted down a short hill that led to the marina, just beyond the Alliance outpost.
There were a number of boats tied to the stone docks, but to Regina’s dismay none of them were Alliance airships.
The heretic led her horse over to a small wooden jalopy with a single mast, docked between two larger vessels.
The heretic helped Regina off her horse, and then led their steeds over to the marina’s gate. After he tied the horses up in the shadows where they wouldn’t be noticed for the moment, the heretic came back to the boat, and both he and Regina boarded.
“You can ditch the armour now,” the heretic said after they shipped off. He wrenched off the horned helmet, and tossed it into the Gabriel Sea.
“Won’t we need the armour when we reach Syreen?” Regina yawned, although the thought of being caught and accused of treason alongside the heretic still frightened her.
“My presence hasn’t been made public knowledge – and even so, nobody knows we’ve left Galheist Region yet,” the heretic explained as he peeled off layers of the Alliance gear – dropping each piece into the water, one by one, with loud splashes. “By the time Lablanche realizes we’ve crossed the sea, we’ll have already been to Garia, and I’ll already be on my way to Doblah.”
“And what about me?” Regina asked.
“What about you?” the heretic replied, slipping off the final piece of armour – his left gauntlet – and letting it drop into the ocean with a wet and heavy thunk! “As I said before, nobody knows about you except for that grunt general back in Altas, who’s likely taken up a grain scythe by now instead of his spear. As long as our trek goes well, you’ll live to see your Dwain again.”

~

“Regina ... Regina Lepue...
“Hear us out, from the depths of our respective sanctums. You must seek us out from our holy resting places and bring us together to repel the evil that is brewing in the mountains…
“Please ... we beg of you. Evil lurks in the shadows, and unless we are brought together by one of a pure heart, evil’s clutch will forever bind us together, draining our power for the use of turmoil and despair.
“...Find us ...  please … find us.”

She woke with a jolt as soon as she felt the chill of the wind kiss her cheek.
At first glance, the fog-blanketed water around her startled the skunk, but then she remembered where she was: swaying back and forth in the dingy boat, in the middle of the Gabriel Sea.
Regina let out a sharp breath. She wasn’t at all used to the heavy sway of the water underneath her. She gripped both sides of the boat as tightly as the Alliance gauntlets she wore would let her.
The heretical fox lay against the boat’s bow with legs outstretched and crossed at the ankles, his heels against the base of the boat’s mast. His fluffy tail was twisted up around his waist, laying across his stomach, and his paws were folded over his chest.
He was snoring.
When Regina shifted her weight, she realized she was draped in the heretic’s grey cloak. He must have thrown it over her when she was fast asleep before. Curiously, the skunk fingered at one of the many tiny holes in the thick hooded cloak’s fabric, and wondered what caused them.
Regina gazed up at the bright of Vida’s moon. She squinted at it, trying to make out the face carved deep into it.
When she was younger, the skunk thought the face in the moon was Mother Azna.
She hadn’t thought about that in years.
Her chin dropped, and although she was very tired, Regina couldn’t sleep.
She then noticed the moonlight glinting against something against the fox’s throat.
Regina looked at the thing hard, and realized it was the dark-glassed vial hanging on a thin chain around the heretic’s neck.
She had forgotten all about it. What was in it that was so precious to the fox, she wondered.
Regina gazed skyward. There was nothing but the star-laden night sky, with the black and foggy waters of the Gabriel Sea as far as the eye could see.
They were alone, the skunk realized. Alone and drifting to the unknown beyond.



~ End of Part One ~