A Landen Village in Southern Glacia, Kaeleer [Wednesday Afternoon, Fandom Time]

[glacial_witch]

It was almost time for then to catch their portal home, but Morton had cautiously decided that there was enough time to visit one more landen village before they left. Even Julian didn't have much a problem with this, mollified by the five Blood males (and seven females) that Karla had handwavily, because cons are exhausting offered a place in her

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[glacial_enemies]

The village was silent and deserted as the Coach rolled into the center of town. If there weren't signs of previous activity--laundry hanging on lines, the wheat growing in the fields, the remains of a game of marbles hastily abandoned--one would almost think it a ghost town. Heketah smiled to herself over a goblet of yarbarah. It seemed that her reputation had spread. Even coming so early as she'd done had given the fools enough time to hide in their little houses, like rabbits cowering from a wolf.

If the thrill of the hunt wasn't so much fun, she'd wonder how they could have gotten warning in time.

"Ralt," she said, licking the blood from her lips. "Do go and let the landens know we're here."

[kaeleerans]

With an abbreviated bow, Ralt opened the Coach door and stepped out. "Landens!" he called, voice booming with Craft. "The High Priestess has deigned to visit your...village." The sneer in his voice suggested that he had several better words for it, but had decided to be polite. "Come out and greet her!"

The village remained silent and still, not a single person stirring, not even enough to peek out from behind curtains.

After fifteen seconds with no movements, Ralt tried again. "I said come out and greet her!"

[glacial_witch]

"High Priestess?" Karla hissed. "Who the bloody Hell is that?!"

[apocalipped]

"Trouble," Jono murmured, voice grim. "With a title like that, if you don't know, she can't possibly be anything but more trouble than we need right now."

To say the least.

"Now shut your gob, unless you want them to hear us."

Jono was so delicate in these situations.

[glacial_enemies]

Oh, how right you were, Jono. About trouble, anyway.

"That's fine, Ralt," Heketah said from inside the Coach. Her voice wasn't raised and yet her voice rang through the village, clear as a bell. "If they don't want to come out, we'll just give them a little bit of incentive. I have always found a bonfire to be so warming on these brisk spring nights. Say...a village-wide one? Do you think that would convince them to come out and say hello?"

[kaeleerans]

That, at least, drew the people from their homes. One by one, doors opened and people began creeping forward, eyes downcast, hands in pockets or clutching clothing or clinging to one another. Soon, every adult in the village was huddled under Ralt's stare.

For all that he looked petulant and angry, it was the empty window of the Coach that drew their frightened looks.

[kaeleerans]

"Priestess," Ralt said, bowing once again towards the Coach. "They have assembled for you. Is there any among the great unwashed that suits your fancy?"

[glacial_enemies]

The door of the Coach swung open and two more Warlords rushed out to hand down a beautiful woman, with long black hair, golden eyes, and light brown skin. She was paler than most of the long-lived of Dhemlan; her kind could not bear the direct kiss of the sun. It was only that pallor and the age in her glittering eyes that gave her away for what she was, the scent of dead flesh covered up by expensive perfume and blood.

Heketah, High Priestess of Hell, dead for other fifty thousand years.

"Thank you," she said batting her eyes at her escorts, her voice a girlish titter. She always spoke like that, even while detailing the cruelest punishments she could devise. Several in the crowd shuddered to hear it. "And, no, Ralt, I don't think there is."

Her eyes scanned the crowd and her lip curled. "I don't think everyone is here. Can you not see who is missing?"

[kaeleerans]

Ralt glanced around the crowd as if he could spot a hole where someone specific should stand. "Ahh, no, High priestess. My family lives not far from here, but I assure you, I've never spent enough time among these people to recognize them all by face. Perhaps you could--"

[glacial_enemies]

Hekatah giggled, her hand trailing over the face of a comely young landen man and where her nails slid, skin split and blood flowed. She stood on her tiptoes and licked at it, sliding down his cheek and neck. "No, you ripe idiot," she said, still coy. "Do you know, handsome one?"

[glacial_witch]

[glacial_enemies]

"Pay attention to me when I speak to you!" Heketah demanded.

He looked at her, but still said nothing.

This time when her hand struck his skin, it burned. He struggled not to scream, but her Craft was stronger than his will. He sank to his knees and she yanked him up, fastening her teeth to his neck and tearing through flesh and vein.

"I asked you if you knew who was missing," she repeated, drawing her mouth away. The girlish voice was an obscenity with blood smeared across her mouth.

[glacial_witch]

[glacial_enemies]

"Very good," Heketah cooed, swiping a fingerful of blood and licking it. She dropped him carelessly to the ground and turned back to the other villagers. He did not move again.

She didn't care.

"Now then, my darlings, where are the children?"

[not_a_parakeet]

Warren wasn't panicking, there at the bottom of the well. He knew those sounds. He knew those sounds far too well, by now. The sounds of murder and desperation, crowding in around him from all sides like the cold water they were waist-deep in and the crumbling stone walls of the well...

Warren. Wasn't. Panicking.

He was just... reminding himself over and over that he couldn't get out of the well without help, and even if he did, he didn't stand a chance trying to change anything that was going on up above.

He wasn't panicking. He was just putting forth that much more effort to keep from throwing up.

[apocalipped]

Jono wasn't panicking, either. He was simply looking upwards, his face pulled into a very carefully schooled mask of calm.

Of course she wanted the children. Psychopathic murderess, bloody vampire. Of course she'd want the easiest prey.

He wasn't panicking. But he was shaking with the effort it took to restrain himself from flying up there and trying to cleave her head from her shoulders before anyone realized what he was about to do.

"Somebody remind me that I can't just kill her," he murmured, lip curling back and eyes glowing red fury up toward the tiny circle of open sky above them.