Fen Telum, Sorceress for Hire (#1)
CRASH! The iron gate slammed shut before Fen Telum, sealing away the throne room and its precious contents. A slow grin lit the scarred woman's face. A quiet chuckle escaped her lips. After all she'd shown them, what did the fools expect this to accomplish?
Fen lifted her right hand negligently, her fingers flashing through a series of contortions. A rushing sound filled the hall as air flowed towards her palm, condensing into a visible sphere. She made a flicking gesture and the sphere shot towards the door with a clap of thunder, denting the center and tearing the whole thing from its hinges. There were curses and screams from within the throne room.
Iron clanged underfoot as Fen strolled over the fallen barrier. She looked around the room, appraising the remaining guards and locating the huddled form of the terrified King whose castle this was. She didn't care about the guards, though she expected the need to kill them. The king was the one who mattered, just the way his kind liked it.
Some of the more experienced guardsmen collected themselves enough to launch an attack. Arrows flew towards Fen from five bows even as six men charged her with sword and shield. In that moment of commitment, Fen's eyes finished their sweep of the room and confirmed that there truly were no mages with the king. No magic of any kind, in fact. Her informant had just earned themselves a fat bonus.
The arrows slowed to a halt as if sliding through thick gel instead of air. Fen stomped her right foot, hard, and screamed one of the minor names for Earth and Stone. The floor erupted upward with jagged shards that ripped through the charging soldiers, lifting them from their feet as they were impaled.
Panic and terror reigned over the rest of the room as Fen casually walked past the small grove of gory stalagmites towards the king and the few soldiers he had left. There was no resistance when she reached them. No fight left in those that remained. Fen made sure of the king's face, nodded once, and snapped her fingers.
The surviving guards squealed like pigs as their sovereign's head slid from his shoulders in a dense spray of blood. They waited their turn, petrified by fear. Fen was gone before they even noticed she was leaving.
Fen looked back at the castle as she rode through the deserted town that surrounded it. One more piece to the job and the contract would be fulfilled. She focused upon the fragment of rock held between her fingers; a bit of worked stone from the castle’s foundation. Her eyes burned with a fey light and she shouted arcane words in an inhuman voice.
There was a deafening roar as the proud structure, home and seat of power to ten generations of kings, collapsed inwards upon itself; pulled downward with such force that stone fused together, leaving red veins of molten rock burning dimly across the mountainous pile of rubble.
Fen whistled sharply, leaped atop the unnatural creature that appeared in response, and was gone. In her wake, the fresh corpse of a kingdom crumbled.