Nyra wasn’t aware of how many hours she spent taking bucket after bucket from one well to the next. She had even lost count of how many trips she had made after the first dozen. The one thing she was aware of, however, was the fact that she had yet to hear the water hit anything in the well. Eventually, she did decide to call it a day, in a matter of speaking and set the bucket down next to the well for tomorrow. Sweat trickled off her brow as she made her way back to the front of the house. Since the stranger had never announced his return, she was a bit surprised to find him inside the house, looking out the rear window. He appeared to be looking toward the well as he brought a small cup to his lips.

“I thought you said you didn’t need to eat?”

A smile spread upon his face, although he didn’t turn to greet her, “that is true. But, just because I don’t need to eat or drink, doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy a little wine from time to time.” He waved a hand toward the table where a bottle was standing, “you can help yourself if you like.”

It had been some time since she had any liquor at all, let alone wine, so she simply grabbed the bottle itself rather than argue the point. It was while she took that first swig of the bottle that she noticed he appeared to be staring at something specific outside, “problem?”

“Not really. I just couldn’t help but notice that rock that you tied the rope around.”

“You said I should get the job done any way I could.”

“I did, didn’t I?” a dry chuckle was the only other response she got from him as he continued to sip his wine as if it was the last cup in existence.

Nyra, on the other hand, was feeling a little too tired for games and made sure he was aware of it by slamming the wine bottle down on the table, “I need to take a bath and clean my armor.”

The stranger finally turned to look at her, but if there was any emotion in his face, Nyra failed to see it, “then you’ll want to go to the far side of the house.” He nodded in the direction he meant, so that there was no misunderstanding, “over the hill you’ll find a small cavern – you can’t miss it. Follow it for a few yards and it will take you to an underground lake. You can wash up there.”

She turned to leave when a thought suddenly crossed her mind and she found herself looking back at him with a furrowed brow, “how do I know you won’t follow me?”

"I will never cease to be amazed by the simplicities of human nature"

"That is not an answer to my question."

Taking one final sip from his wine, the stranger set the cup down before walking toward the far side of the room where a small chest laid at his feet. The chest creaked as he opened it as if protesting any movement upon its part, "have I told you that I am a student of music?" From the chest the stranger produced a rather crude looking violin. The wood appeared to have been carved by hand by an artisan who was more worried about producing music than a good looking instrument. Plucking a couple of the strings produced enough sound to prove the instrument was in working condition, "I made it myself, as you can more than likely guess. Proving once again that anybody can make something they put their minds to, even if they can’t necessarily make it well."

The stranger’s attempt at humor appeared to be lost on Nyra, "how does music guarantee that you aren’t following me?"

"By letting you know where I am," taking a bow from the chest as well, he brought the violin to the crook of his neck and turned from her before he began to play. The instrument sung a haunting tune as he played it, both sad and mysterious, Nyra found it pleasant and foreboding all at the same time. Realizing that their conversation was clearly over, Nyra wasted no time in leaving the house and making her way toward the cave he had mentioned. True to his word, the cave was easy enough to find and although the violin music was becoming distant the further she was from the house, the cave itself appeared to echo the sound, just enough so that she could continue to hear it. Making her way into the cave, it suddenly occurred to her she had not asked the stranger about soap or towels and wondered if she should return to the house for them. But, once again, she found there was no need to worry. Upon reaching the small underground lake she found soap and towels already waiting for her, resting upon a small niche in the cave. It appeared unlikely that the stranger would have already known she was going to ask to wash up, although not entirely out of question. Perturbed at the thought that the stranger could possibly be able to predict her actions, she told herself that the items were simply placed there for his own use and set the rest of her thoughts in the back of her mind.

She was quick to undress, spending years in the company of men in the army had made her always mindful of when she was unclothed. Stepping into the water quickly, she had expected it to be freezing, but instead found it pleasant almost immediately. Swimming to the far side of the lake, she found the water had caused the rock to form into a small cupped shape on the one end. Resting upon the rock, she spread her arms out upon the wall and found herself rather oddly relaxed. Most people probably would not have found this strange, but for a woman such as Nyra who couldn’t remember the last time she wasn’t looking over her shoulder or expecting the worse, this feeling was quite unexpected. Sitting there upon the rock, the water resting upon her shoulders and the haunting tune of the stranger drifting in the air, she found a small moment of peace. Her eyelids becoming heavy, the exhaustion from the days work taking its toll, sleep snuck upon her and before she knew it, she gave in to it and found herself in a deep slumber.

* * *

Nyra stood upon the hill with Lox and Gor, looking upon the army that had been sent to stop them. It wasn’t the first to stand in their way since receiving their power and it most likely would not be the last. Nyra and Gor simply waited as Lox decided the best course of action.

"Those ignorant fools. They believe they can stop us with sheer numbers." Lox sneered as he motioned toward the ranks of men that marched toward them, "look there, on the sidelines, they have trainees marching with them just to bolster their numbers. It looks like this one will be easy enough." Turning from the impending army, he faced Nyra and Gor, regarding them as soldiers just as he always had, "listen up, men. We will ride out to them and ask for their surrender just as we have for the previous armies that they have sent against us. When they refuse to do so, I want each of you to take out their side defenses. Nyra, you take the right, Gor will have the left. Once we have all the trainees out of the way, we will begin to squeeze, boxing them in. Understood?"

"Yes sir!" The two of them spoke in unison as they had a hundred times in the past. Nyra couldn’t help but feel that the reply did not have the same emphasis that it had when Lox was commanding two thousand troops rather than simply two. Their horses were waiting for them as patiently as ever as they mounted and began to ride out toward the army. It did not take the encroaching army long to notice the three riders and they immediately halted their progress to see what they would do. Only when they were a few hundred yards away did Lox finally signal for Gor and Nyra to stop before stepping down from his horse as was custom to show his want for negotiations. It took a few moments of bickering among the three generals that led the army before one of them finally disembarked from his horse as well.

Lox watched as the man began to move toward him, his eyes never leaving the man’s sight, "Gor, Nyra, be ready for my signal. I imagine this will not take long." Without another word, Lox began to walk toward the man himself until they finally met halfway between the army and where Lox’s horse stood.

Nyra tried to listen as best she could, but only a few words were delivered to her by the wind. Something about surrender, laughter from the other man, shouting about rights and the word ’foolhardy’. It was after that last word that Lox grabbed the general’s own sword out of his sheath and stabbed him with it before turning away as the man’s corpse hit the ground. Nyra was not surprised at the outcome, Lox had never been very good at negotiations. Lox signaled for them to begin even as the army behind him began to move forward. Knowing their jobs, they each galloped toward one side of the army, Nyra’s sword at the ready as Gor unsheathed his twin axes. He had once told Nyra that he had named his axes, but for the life of her, at that very moment, she couldn’t think of what those names were.

Lox turned to face the charging army even as he heard the screams of the first to meet Nyra’s blade and Gor’s axe. Smiling, his eyes became pulsing red beams of light as he called forth his power, "now, you will see why you do not defy your better!" Raising his arms up high, the very ground before him lifted up as if some giant hand had picked it up like a loose rock. Turning until it was a giant wall in front of him, Lox finally forced his hands forward and the wall flew toward the army easily taking out a score of men before it crushed another dozen as it fell once again to the earth. The few closest to Lox paused for a moment when they saw their comrades become smothered by his magic before summoning up their courage and charging at him once more. After his initial showing, Lox was more concerned with results rather than grandstanding, so without another word, he began to unsteady the men’s footing with earthquakes only to then summon spires of rock to spew forth from the earth to impale his foes. As his onslaught continued, Gor slashed away with his twin axes, trying to create a path to Lox. The mountain of a man had little problem taking care of so many a foe, especially while having the advantage on horseback, but craved the constant orders that Lox gave him on a regular basis. It was so much easier for Gor to simply do as he was told rather than have to rely on himself to know the best course of action.

Nyra, on the other hand, found herself moving away from her compatriots. Men swarmed at her, trying to pull her from her horse as she continued to slash at them, one after another. Her eyes beamed as she watched their blood pour from their wounds and heard the angry shouts as they yelled obscenities at her in their frustration. Reveling in the satisfaction of being unstoppable, Nyra let her guard down for a split second. It was during that second she realized the cold hard truth of conflict: no one is unstoppable.

She hit the ground hard as she was forced from her horse, only instinct saved her from an injury as she found herself rolling into the fall without even thinking. Although they had accomplished what they intended, most of the soldiers around her were taken by surprise, as if they had truly believed in their hearts that she could not be taken down. This moment of hesitation on their part was all the time Nyra needed to stand and call her power to her sword. By this time, she had only used her power a handful of times at most and the feeling that ran through her body as she summoned the power of ice was exhilarating. The little sunlight that pierced the clouds overhead glistened off the blade of ice she now held in her hand. Her hazel eyes were gone replaced with pure white globes instead and she smiled at the soldiers as she held her blade out toward them.

"Who wishes to see the Underworld first?" an inhuman tone accented her voice, hanging there like a forgotten echo, "step forward and see how your God has forsaken you."

At first, the men around her stood their ground and for one solitary fleeting instant, Nyra wondered if perhaps they would actually retreat from her. It was then that they came at her at full force. They might of begun by trying to strike her or disarm her in some fashion, but as they watched her slice through them as if they were straw dolls, the blood of their comrades spilling freely from their bodies, they realized that overwhelming her was their only option. Sacrificing themselves for the sake of their families and loved ones, the men began to pile on top of Nyra, using their bodies as human shields as she desperately tried to use her sword to cut them down before they could reach her. In the end, it was no grand scheme, nor some great warrior that stopped her. It was simple luck that a single blow sent her sword flying from her grasp and her body falling to the ground. Lox and Gor were too far from her to even know she was in any trouble as she had chosen to move away from them to take on even more foes than the two of them were fighting combined.

Looking up from the ground, Nyra could see her sword from where she lay and watched as the ice magic dissolved from it, revealing the true blade underneath once more. She couldn’t hear the men around her commanding her to surrender, nor could she feel the point of a sword jabbing her back, daring her to try to stand. In her eyes, at that very moment, the battlefield melted away. With her weapon gone and her defeat imminent the only picture she could see was her foster father. Since the day he took her in he had told her that she was nothing. He had taken great efforts to explain to her that her parents had abandoned her because they also knew that she was nothing. It’s easy to forget and discard that which means nothing to you after all. And then, at night, when he would come to her and force himself upon her, he would whisper in her ear that she was making him do it. He told her he had no choice, that she was forcing him to take advantage of her just to prove that she was something.

"No!" her eyes grew large as her hand balled into a fist, a light frost appearing to grow upon her skin, "I won’t let you touch me again!" Her scream echoed through the battlefield before she slammed her fist into the ground. To her surprise, the power which she had unintentionally summoned into her fist released into the ground, spreading like a plague, freezing the ground around her in a thick sheet of ice and snow. The frozen energy she let loose didn’t stop at the ground, however, and soon the soldiers around her found themselves frozen in place as a thick layer of ice began to form around their bodies. As she laid there in disbelief, the ice continued to race outward in a radius around her, one soldier after another becoming encased in pure solid ice. Lox and Gor only had a moment to react when they suddenly noticed the ice coming toward them. Gor instinctly covered himself in fire as Lox rose the ground around them as a shield to push the ice away. Their actions saved them even as the ice finally stopped after freezing a great majority of the army. The few that were still standing looked upon their frozen comrades in awe and curiosity. It was only when they saw one of the soldiers eyes moving that they realized the men were still alive inside the ice and the fear of what was happening began to gnaw at them.

Nyra simply stared at the field of frozen statues that stood around her, unable to fully comprehend what she had just witnessed. Her confusion began to form into panic as she tried to sit up and found that her fist was frozen into the ground. Grabbing her hand with her other, she pulled as hard as she could to release her fist from the ground her only thoughts that she had to break free. With a sudden cracking sound her hand finally came free as the ice around it appeared to simply break apart on its own accord. She held her hand tenderly, examining it to ensure that it was still completely intact, relief washing over as she found that it was. Standing once again, she began to regret using her power, wishing she could simply take away what she did even while she marveled at how helpless the soldiers were now. A thought came to her then, as she looked at the fear in the eyes of one of the frozen soldiers. She thought about how easy it would to kill them all at one time.

Before she had time to react, her eyes returned to normal as the power within her retreated back to that place deep inside. Even as it left, Nyra could swear she felt a shock wave spread over the entire field. It had made such a low sound it was barely audible, yet undeniable. Even the soldiers who were still standing heard and felt it, their eyes wandering around in search of the source of the shock wave. Gor and Lox braced themselves, certain something was about to happen, but unaware of what exactly it was. In that one moment, all sound in the field ceased as if everyone that still stood there were holding their breath at the same time. But, the silence would not last.

Without warning the ice around them shattered into thousands of pieces, chunks of ice flying into the air before falling earthward like a storm composed entirely of hail. They tried to find cover, but as the field had been chosen due to its open plains, there was no cover to find. Lox created a dome of earth for himself and Gor as Nyra tried to run away from the ice which appeared to miss her completely. Had the ice been the only think falling from the sky, the soldiers may have been able to survive unscathed. But, as they looked around them, their fear of what was happening was quickly turning to horror. The soldiers that had been covered in ice had not been freed when the ice shattered. Their bodies had been torn apart by the ice ripping away from the flesh it had clung on to. Their bones, muscles and bits of flesh still stood there, blood trying to pump to organs that were already beginning to fall to the ground. The ice that fell began to melt only to reveal bits of flesh and hair littered all over the battlefield. The bodies would eventually collapse, one by one as gravity took its toll and the soldiers who survived ran from the sight, their minds broken far worse than their bodies had ever been. Even Gor and Lox, who had each themselves slaughtered men and women without mercy or thought were taken aback at the sight.

Nyra, stood at the far edge of the battlefield, looking at the piles of meat and bone that were once men. No thoughts came to her, as her mind seemed to have shut down at the sight. Never before had she witnessed something so horrific and the fact that she was responsible weighed down on her heavily. Her knees gave way and she found herself once again upon the ground, still staring at the blood drenched fields. No tears would fall from her cheek, no matter how horrific the scene. The truth, which scared even her, was that she did not regret killing so many. She only regretted the manner in which she had done it.

It took almost an hour before Lox and Gor had rounded up the horses and met up with Nyra once more. No words were spoken, for none were needed. She mounted her horse and followed them, but could tell from their glances that they were afraid. Although they all had been given power, only she had killed an entire army without even intending to do so. Nyra could hear their thoughts as if they were speaking out loud. Lox wondered if she would try to ’overthrow’ him as the leader of their little group while Gor worried if he could stop her should she choose to try to kill him. She did not care what they thought, for her mind was preoccupied with what she had done. Over the years she had learned how to face her fears, but how was she supposed to face it when she was afraid of herself? The answer would eventually turn out to be time. Only after a few weeks was she finally able to keep her mind off of the past and concentrate on the future. Little did she realize where the future would take her.

* * *

Nyra woke with a start the water rippling around her as she jolted upright. She hadn’t dreamed about that day for so long, she had thought she was past it. Holding her hand to her head, she told herself to get the memory out of there, for it certainly wasn’t doing her any good staying there. Sighing, she let her hand slide down to the water only to find it brush up against ice instead. Only then did she realize she hadn’t bothered to look at her surroundings and wondered how she could not have noticed them sooner. The water around her was partly frozen, large chunks of ice floating like miniature glaciers. The ice was already melting, cracks appearing in some of the chunks as small pieces broke free from larger masses.

Without thinking, Nyra began to move away from the wall and made her way toward the entrance. Having no idea what had happened to the water, her only thought was to leave the water before she froze. Then it suddenly occured to her. She wasn’t cold at all. In fact, she actually felt comfortable. But, that wasn’t right. She told herself she should be freezing. No sooner did the thought strike her than her body began to shiver as the ice cold water suddenly chilled her to the bone. Realizing that she must have been cold the whole time and her body had simply been in shock, Nyra wasted no time to make her way out of the water. Grabbing the towels that still lay upon the nich she had seen earlier, she quickly dried herself, trying to warm her body as quickly as she could. Once she finally sat down and looked out at the lake once more, she realized she could still hear the violin music coming from the house. The tune was a different one than the previous, but still sounded hauntingly mysterious to her. In a way, she expected no less from the stranger.

It didn’t take long for her to feel warm again, much to her own surprise and she soon found herself dressing once more. Frowning as she looked at her dirty armor, she realized that washing it in the small lake here simply would not do. For a moment, she thought about actually leaving her armor off and wearing only the simple leather clothes she always had on under her armor. But, her pride and suspicions of the stranger ultimately won over once again and she found herself strapping her ash covered armor on once more. Leaving the cavern, she made her way to the house, her mind going over her dream again and again. She had thought about talking to someone about the events many times before and as she listened to the music floating in the air around her, she considered telling the stranger. But, that thought was dismissed almost as quickly as it was made and instead she found herself saying not a word as she entered the house and made her way to the bedroom. Food was the last thing on her mind at this point as she laid her head down upon the small bed. Rather, as her eyes began to close once more, all she could think of were hopes that she would no longer dream again, just drift to a black nothingness where she could stay and be comforted with the realization that she was truly alone.