Seven-Altur'Rang invaded

[AlturRang invaded]

Seven sat between the spikes of Firebreath, tilting her head to the north. She foresaw Mina reaching Caska next week, if she kept with her furious pace. Still, she would encounter patrols of soldiers, many of which would be eager to eat her. Seven smiled, knowing what an unfortunate surprise the goat was.

She turned back, the smile fading from her face as she stared at the burning barracks of Altur'Rang. The dragon had incinerated more than a thousand. There had been at least half a dozen gifted who had attempted to stop her killing spree, but they were no match when she slowed their perception of a time and deflected their attacks. They apparently didn't have the experience to know how to fight a witch woman, much less someone as powerful as she. Even if they did, they had no idea what nasty surprises she had prepared.

The flow of time revealed to her that a man was standing behind her with an arrow notched. Without turning, she conjured a tangible illusion of his deepest fear--a snake--which bit him in the neck before he could even blink. He dropped dead.

Seven lifted a fist towards where a gifted began to create a light spell. Before the foundational link could be completed, Seven effortlessly disconnected her from her gift. Without pause she unleashed a tight bolt of unrestrained force that lit the gloomy day with one blinding flash. The sorceress, now an unrecognizable pile of ripped flesh, crumpled to the ground.

[Pillar of Creation]

Liliana grimly aproached the scene. She could feel the witch womans power, she wasn't weak by their standards but the suprise she had ready would take care of this problem. She gripped the little figure of the archer with an arrow notched in her fist. As she rounded the corner she threw it to the ground as hard as she could then simply turned around and began her walk back to the palace. She smiled sadly as she heared the dragon roar in pain from the creatures it could not defeat. It saddened Liliana to lose such a rare piece of magic, but those phantom archers would deal with that witch woman and her dragon.

[Seven]

Seven gripped the spikes tightly, trying with all her might and gift to pull the dragon upward. Arrows seemingly made of compressed shadow shot through the air, taking down anything they caught. Firebreath's hide was, of course, much more than that of human skin. But those phantom archers did give him pain. If she didn't move faster, the dragon's scales, no matter how hard, will be pierced.

When an arrow came too close, she unleashed an illusion of shields, successfully protecting her fragile body. At last, the flow of time favored her once more. Firebreath was finally able to shot through the volley of tangled darkness and to the sky. Before the phantom archers could attack them, she probed through the weave of the constructed spell--and found the loose thread in it.

Constructed shields were irrevocably imperfect no matter how complex the fail-safes were, and that allowed a witch woman to meddle with it. Of course, all she could do was change its minor functions and not be able to halt its completion; she wasn't a wizard, or a sorceress, for that matter. But that didn't mean she couldn't use it as an advantage. As that thread of flaw magic unraveled, she replaced it with her own power. The phantom archers paused imperceptibly and then turned to all directions, firing arrows swiftly as the wind. Before hulking soldiers could take so much a breath, they were ripped into shreds of flesh. Those dark arrows blasted through walls as if lightning through paper.

In a span of seconds, three buildings and more than twenty thousand men were annihilated.

Beneath her, the dragon wobbly flied across the city, stirring citizen who looked up and were frozen in terror and surprise. He was injured, that was sure, but he was far from dead. Her gift had warned her how powerful those women were, but they didn't know what kind of other creatures--and stolen objects of magic--she kept in her domain.

Seven glanced at the Liberty Square, feeling a sense of forlorn emptiness. "The Spirit of Kahlan Amnell falls."

And then she glared at the splendid palace below. The empress didn't know what kind of witch woman she was. She would never have thought that all it would take to kill her was an illusion of a sword stabbing through her kidney. Seven would give her her worst.

"Firebreath, go home to Agaden Reach." Seven casually ordered, pausing for a moment as the flow of time revealed something so hilarious. Mina was going to save the Lord Rahl. Classic. "Protect our home. Urge the dragons, Andolians, gars, Shadrins and Calthrops to tighten the security. No one must cross through the forest. No one, not even a child. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Mistress," Firebreath winced a little in pain. "Aren't you going home? It would be hard for a dragon to direct other creatures of magic."

"You must," seven insisted. "The empress has a quillon. The rogue Confessors to north are making a pact with them because of that crystal. I must destroy it."

"Mistress, the empress is powerful. And look what she did to me!" the dragon roared. The people below shrieked and scrambled in false alarm. "You warned me of her long before she came, yet her magic took me unprepared."

"She thinks that a dragon and a witch woman is little trouble, as she puts it in false confidence," Seven arched an eyebrow. "But what she saw was mostly your doing. Liliana has no idea, nothing at all, what kind of monster I am."

"She's gifted, Mistress," Firebreath mumbled. "She'll sense you're gifted, even how much you try to cloak yourself with illusions and shields."

"She wouldn't sense if time stands still in her world, correct?" Seven yawned. "Don't worry, what I'm going to do is quite simple. Destroy the quillon, kill her. Whatever. That's like washing your socks."

When the dragon landed a few hours away from Altur'Rang, Seven slipped down his beautiful body and waved him good-bye. Seven swiveled to the beautiful city a long distance away. Seven would have to 'persuade' the merchant who would pass through the area in an hour to bring her to Altur'Rang. To the empress.