Miriro was ready. She stood under the waxing crescent moon that was obscured by rain clouds and she was no longer the stunning woman she had been under the moonlight. She looked her age as she stood while the shadows gathered around her. She was a dessicated corpse, dried and withered bark where flesh and skin had been, black holes in her skull that once held eyes, with teeth and bones at her chin that fell open and closed when she talked.
“You all have been busy,” she said with delight as strings of neon green energy shot out from the dark figures in the circle and into the space in her dessicated rib cage where her heart had been when it was still beating. Her ancient body filled with the neon glow and when her form was full, the light began to pulse, sending flashes of green up toward the moon through the clearing of the trees. The flow of energy was tremendous and manifested as streaks of green light packed together as a stream that rocketed to the moon.
As the energy surged to her from the circle, she was also fed by the many deer she had created days ago to hold her excess power, and when the neon green lines were exhausted from the deer, they disappeared like ash sculptures blown away by the wind.
The weather churned around her large expulsion of energy that broke out of the Earth’s atmosphere and then encircled the moon in a bright, sickly green light. The winds and rain raged in a miles long circumference around her green form that levitated.
As the green energy encircled the moon, Miriro uttered words in an unknowable language and her body twisted into formations to coincide with her strange words.
“She’s doing it,” a voice said from the surrounding dark shadows.
“She will bring the Witch Moon!” another voice yelled with excitement and cheers followed it.
“Who is that approaching the exalted witch?” a voice asked earnestly.
“Should we stop it?”
“It’s Wazad the Wonderful!”
“Who?”
“She’s going to attack! If she interrupts the incantation, we won’t get the Witch Moon! We must stop her from interfering!”
“But she is Wazad the Wonderful, we are no match against her mastery.”
“Witches of might, we have a duty to protect the exalted witch in her vulnerable state. Can’t you feel the power of the Witch Moon already? And it’s not even fully realized. We are stronger in her presence, we can stop Wazad.”
Five shadows leaped from the circle and toward the golden figure of Wazad whose thick, golden hair was blown back by the force of the power Miriro generated. As she neared Miriro’s form, she pulled a large sword from the sheath at her back. The black figures were almost on Wazad when tendrils of inky black grabbed each of the figures and flung them into the dark, rain-drenched forest. Wazad was distracted from her goal of striking the form of Miriro with her golden sword as a man descended from a height on a billowing cloud of smoke to land just behind her.
“Paul says there’s two razew approaching through the woods,” the man on the cloud of black smoke, Zacchaeus, said.
“Go after them,” Wazad said. “Where are the boys? They can hold the witches off while I stop Miriro.”
Two bolts of lightning struck the ground near Wazad and on the smoldering spots on the forest floor stood Ivan and Clay. Lightning crackled around their forms and it attacked the black forms that tried to advance on Wazad and the ones that tried to capture Zacchaeus as he charged into the woods to find the approaching razew.
Wazad returned her attention to the pulsing form of Miriro that was still channeling energy to the moon and it was apparent that the incantation was almost complete; there was an orb of bright green in the sky that was almost a complete circle. Wazad had enchanted her golden sword with an incantation to disrupt magic, so all she needed to do was plunge her sword into the form of Miriro. And as she lifted the sword to thrust it at the witch, she heard both Ivan and Clay yell in agony. She turned, and both were on the ground, at the feet of a witch who was green in the light of Miriro’s incantation.
“Wazad,” the witch said. Her left hand was lifted next to her face and an orb of violet energy spun in her hand. “I have heard of you. Do you know me?”
Wazad stared at the witch who wore a black dress that exposed her shoulders and hung down to her shins, and her long black hair swirled around her head in the churning energy.
“Are you a lacky of this trouble maker?” Wazad asked as she turned her attention back to Miriro and she lunged with her sword. The golden blade connected with a violet barrier, preventing her from striking Miriro.
“The exalted witch has a mission that I will see her complete. I am Anesu, and you must go through me to stop her.”
“Little witch,” Wazad said with annoyance, “I will make you regret this.”
Wazad lifted her sword toward Anesu and charged at her. As she swung the sword, intent on slicing the witch in half, Anesu parried the blow with a force field at her hands. Wazad attacked relentlessly with her blade, and Anesu blocked each blow with her force field that seemed to struggle and blink out under Wazad’s power. Wazad lifted her golden sword and swung with all of her might and the blow knocked Anesu onto her back. Anesu lay groaning.
“You won’t stop her!” Anesu yelled and a stream of the shadowy figures charged at Wazad.
Wazad turned her attention to Miriro again, intent on driving her sword through the witch. As the sword neared the pulsing green form of Miriro, the shadowy black figures nipped at her heels.
Anesu yelled and with her remaining strength, she conjured a force field that shattered as Wazad smashed into it, but it slowed her down just enough for the shadows to envelope the golden form of Wazad.
The incantation was complete, and the stream of energy that issued from Miriro’s body ceased. Everything settled at the sudden cessation of the energy and Miriro stood smiling with her nice body under the sickly glow of the waxing moon that would swell to first quarter, when it would become the true Witch Moon.
“It is done,” Miriro said with delight. “Prepare for the assembly.”
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