Rhama growled softly and licked her lips. Getting in had been easy, pushing aside a few stones to wriggle in a window.
She climbed up onto the ceiling, the pads on her fingers and toes, her talons gripping into the rock. The chandeliers were unlit, the only light from the measly torches below.
The dracanae jumped onto the chandelier, swinging leisurely as a pair of dark, elven guards walked up the hall. Warriors, certainly, only their women had the magics.
She flipped and hung from her arms, reaching down with her split tail.
The elf felt a crushing pain in his neck before he was lifted up, Rhama jumped, landing on the other one’s shoulders, crushing him beneath her weight. She hissed and crushed the first’s throat, watching him collapse before digging her black talons into his neck and ripping it apart.
Rhama licked his blood from her fingers, silver-gray, tasting of rain and wind and electricity.
She inhaled and scurried down the hall, her talons sheathed and the pads of her feet silent on the rich, soft carpeting.
Rhama jumped up onto the wall, crawling like some kind of volcanic lizard as she poked her head around the corner. A pair of huldra guards. Short and voluptous, pale skinned and both redheads, doe ears, doe eyes, doe legs and doe tails.
She crawled up onto the ceiling, her target obviously expected a male to make it past his guards.
One of the huldra moved, walking down the hall.
At that sauntering gait, then the probable run back, the discovery of the elves would take approximately two minutes.
As soon as the first huldra rounded the corner Rhama dropped behind the first, delivering a hard strike to the spine, talons piercing the pale skin and severing the spine.
The creature crumpled with hardly a sound.
Rhama knelt and sank her fangs into the female’s throat, drinking her lifeblood before she died. She then sprang up, running on all fours, sliding around the corner then leaping, landing on the back of the second huldra.
The creature didn’t even have time to scream. Rhama stung her with the stinger on her long, scarlet tongue, paralyzing her.
With a smirk, Rhama speared an eye on each talon and popped them into her mouth, feeling the rush of power, Mana, fill her blood.
She growled low, the stone beneath this infernal mansion almost called for her to use her power, and the fire so far below it beckoned her.
No, not now.
She pushed open the doors.
A long, stone hallway. Volcanic glass, actually, obsidian, polished and the walls covered in stylized murals, carved into the rock and lit by a trough of oil, meant to be lit and burned, illuminate the mural, the tale of the master’s triumphs.
At the end of the hallway was a creature, one she hadn’t seen in a long time.
A full-fledged kitsune.
This one was pure white, a stark contrast to the deep black of the walls and floor. His robe, a type of wool kimono was also white, no, not white, simply unbleached and not dyed.
“You are here to kill the one who holds my contract, daughter of Dragon.”
The kitsune’s voice was a light, melodic tenor.
“You are here to keep me from fulfilling my own contract, son of Inari.” She answered smoothly, sliding her long tongue back into the pouch of her throat. “If you would move aside I would be most grateful.”
The kitsune shook his head, fox-nose twitching a little. “That is something I cannot do, we must battle.”
Rhama nodded.
Her previous foes were street thugs, idiots for hire, an adulterer, a thief, a gambler and a murderer working off their sentences.
This was a worthy foe of her.
She could sense the power of his mana, qi his people, the kitsune, called it.
He drew his star blade, a white katana with his star ball set in the pommel. That would cut clean through her scales, one of the few things that would.
She scratched at the earth with her claws, throwing sparks.
Her magic was her own primal force, her fire and her earth.
The kitsunes was his soul and his own, white light and flames.
She hissed and lashed her tail, rattling her fins and the loose scales on them.
The kitsune passed his hand over his blade, the metal erupting with white flames.
The dracanae paused, then slashed her talons across the walls, the sparks hitting the oil and causing a great blaze, the passage lighting up.
The kitsune averted his eyes at the sudden light, and Rhama struck.
She hurtled herself across the room and racked her claws on his cheek.
He didn’t make a noise, as Rhama went to strike his chest her talons were blocked with his blade. She jumped back, tail lashing, then she came forward again, this time her kick was met with a blade, one that seemed to fold impossibly and stab.
He missed, getting just under her arm.
She turned back and as he lunged forward, nailed his chest with a hard, scaly elbow.
He let out an oof and stumbled back, slashing with his sword, just barely grazing her, simply cutting off the strap of her black chest piece, the flimsy cloth flopping down to bare her breast.
The less a dracanae wore to battle the more honor they received from returning alive, or better, unscathed.
Rhama simply wore a sheer, black cloth covering her breasts, and a thicker, black loincloth.
The kitsune flattened his large ears, but Rhama kicked him in the chest before he could think of raising his blade. Her foot and her talons punctured and slashed his skin, he fell back with a loud grunt.
She came forward and knelt, holding his throat.
“I have no doubt you will give me much mana, kitsune, I am sorry you must die.”
She went to bite his throat, but felt something cold shoved in her mouth.
It was forced down her throat, then her jaws forced shut.
Rhama pulled back, but could not, she squirmed and struggled, gasping for air until she felt the cold thing settle in her stomach.
Then the kitsune let her go.
“My apologies, dracanae, it would’ve been an honor to die by your hand.”
She screeched and lunged for him.
But she never moved.
“I put my star ball in your belly, it will stay in your body until I remove it, until that time you are under my full control.”
Rhama snarled and flicked the antennae at her eyes refusing to speak.
“Come.” The kitsune said, picking up his blade and sheathing it.
Rhama tried not to walk, but was forced to, her limbs moving without her will.
She was led down the corridor and into another room, a lavish library, cluttered with books and chairs, trays of food and empty goblets.
Along with drained, aged bodies, twelve of them.
Over by the fire was one tall, red chair, a figure sat in it, and one beside it on the floor.
On the floor was a woman, her silhouette looked shapely and she wore a conical hat.
Rhama was walked around to the side, facing the man in the chair.
It was her target, Notchimine.
