Boundaries of Light

    The woman sniffed the air in the cold, clear morning. The day was dawning. No sign of anyone was near.
    But she knew.
    Somewhere, nearby, there was a presence.
    An evil presence.
    The light of day grew stronger. Light was no hindrance for this presence, as with the pitiful goblins and ogres. Light was not a factor.
    This presence was haunting the Sallakedma, that place of beauty and tranquility. None dared enter, now, that the horror of the mind-twisting agony might not fall upon them.
    This mind-twisting agony could only come from a tortured creature of great mental powers.
    In other words, a…
    Black Unicorn

    She knew. She knew this was the Black Unicorn that had claimed the lives of so many, left others’ minds crippled to die, all because of its wildly erratic madness. It ate the flesh of men, kalmei, and beasts. Her sons, hunting the creature, had been lost for days before they were found, in tatters and exhausted.
    Zela loosened her sword in its sheath. She did not mean to kill the unicorn, for verily that was perhaps impossible, and she wished to do that which was beyond impossibility. She meant to drive it out into the mountains.

    The light flooded around her beneath the trees, in the clearing in the undergrowth. The sun was hidden by foliage, but the golden red light was warm and gentle.

    The only warning she had was a sudden tremour in the earth...

    Hooves struck her body, knocking her flat and smashing ribs. Her unarmoured body was pummeled, but not destroyed. The Unicorn circled around to attack again, but this time Zela was in crouch, sword ready, blood dying her green tunic black. The Unicorn’s horn began to gleam dangerously with a blue-white light. Woe to the being who touched or was touched by that horn, for it would vapourize a limb in an instant. The Unicorn towered over the tall kalla, pausing in its charge to focus its energy into a rending beam. In that moment, Zela attacked, shooting upward, slicing off the horn at the base. Her shield covered her eyes from the flash that followed. The light grew and grew, and it was neither the sun, the moon, nor the Unicorn’s horn that was now lying on the grass, a thousand years of growth wasted. The World pulsed around Zela, and she, too, collapsed on the grass that was vanishing under the welter of light.
    She was in a nether world of Light. The Light came from the same place as the sun, but it was not.
    “Vanlen,” she breathed, and covered her eyes.
    She awoke in a heap on the ground, Flair beside her, the Unicorn gone.

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