Fantasy RPG Forum - Standing Trials

Continued from here


This wasn't how it was supposed to go. They were six to his one, with Big Sammy and his hammer and Carlos with his shiny sword from the Western lands. Those two had come to the pub and found them supping cheap ale at a cheaper table, tossed a small purse to each man and told them there'd be double once the job was done.

There had been shrugs and bobbing heads all around. Sure. That's what they did after all, but what crew were they going after?

Not a crew, had been the answer. Just a man. Then there had been smiles, and even a laugh or two. One man? To command six cutthroat bastards from the underground? Easy money.

Now they were three to a one that had devastated half their party. Revlie swallowed as the backdoor finally gave way and they were inside, hands clenched into fists around the brass knuckles in each one. Quin and Xander were at his flanks, iron-backed cudgels ready to stove in the skull in question... and they paused as well, seeing their fellows strewn across the floor.

They'd seen Sammy fight three men in a bar for a laugh. He was spewing up blood and shitting himself by the front door. Carlos was the best blades-man Xander had ever seen, at least by Etzosi underworld standards. Half his face was a pulped, bloody mess, and something black was oozing out of his mouth as he slumped against a wall slick with his fluids.

Not to mention the bloke with a dagger through his eye.

"Get-"

Kasoria didn't give them a chance to rally. A trill for shock, maybe two. That's all he'd get, before they realized the fight wasn't done, and anger would override their shock. Even gutter rats sought to avenge their friends, especially when they still outnumbered their enemy.

Weapon, weapon, need a-

Something heavy met his hand, near the table, and he grabbed it-

-hurled one of the two chairs he owned at the trio as they started to move out the doorway. Hands and weapons came up to ward it off as it crashed into them, doing little damage but blinding them for a second so he could come in close and-

-launch a front kick at the man in the middle, knocking him back out the doorway, away or into the men at his sides-

-but not before a reflex punch slammed into the side of his shin, sending a shudder of pain rattling up his leg. Revlie grunted as he staggered back, breath knocked out of them, leaving the other two to surge forward and Quin was already yelling and lunging and-

-Kasoria's back creaked as he jerked away from the cudgel looking to brain him, diagonal blow flying in front of him-

-right arm snapping out to black the backhanded counter he knew was coming as his left fist hammered punch after punch into the man's face, each one coming in the midst of a long, raging howl of anger-

Keep it noisy. Keep it scary, distracting.

-until Xander ended it with a club across his face.

Stupid!

He groped in the dazzling darkness, found something cold and hard. The stove. Griddle on top of it, saucepan atop that, and movement in front of him, snarls and anger and he had not even a trill to-

-yell out and jerk his whole body to the side as he toppled the stove into the path. He tottered like a stage drunk as the blow from the club played havoc with his balance, body seeming to be spread out over a hundred feet. But he stayed on the two he had, and his mind was whirring-

Let them jump over it, get the first one-

Don't be so fucking stupid! Another voice joined it. Old and likely dead, but no less wise for either. Get your fucking-

-sword.

Kasoria half tumbled, half lurched into his bedroom, bedspread across the floor from where he'd leaped out of bed. Out of instinct he snatched it up as he careened towards where his gladius rested, still and sheathed and silent, untroubled by the chaos unfolding around it. He tossed the thick blanket behind him as he dove for it, bundled mass of fabric smacking into Xander's face and blinding him even as he was the first into the room, first to end this fucker that killed their friends.

Well... "friends" was pushing it, but at least it meant a three-way split, as opposed to six.

Then Kasoria got his hand around the hilt of his weapon. Familiar lines and ridges caressed his palm. A weight so well-known it was as if another two feet of flesh and muscle and bone he'd been born with and yet lost had been miraculously returned to him. His body stirred anew at this fine advantage, this savior to his skin a hundred times over, and when he ripped it free from the sheath-

Silver flashed across his bruised face and groggy eyes. Flash enough to chase the focus back into them, remind him what he was and who and how low these vermin were to-

"Fuckin' not gonna stop me-"

Xander died with those words on his lips as he yanked the bedspread off his face and threw it to the side-

-revealing a half-naked man, hairy as a monkey, spinning around to face him, only he was holding lightning-

-silver-

-steel-

-that came screaming at him and fuck, where did he get-

"Shit!"

Revile nearly ran into a still groaning Quin, who was still sensible enough to stop when he saw Xander's throat ripped open. Coming up and across, the odd angle snapped the man's head back and an arc of crimson splashed like red oil into the air... and onto the wall... the ceiling. The ganger coughed and the sound seemed to come from more than one place. He staggered. It was gross and awful and funny, or so they'd think any other night. Xander's club even twitched in his hand, as if he thought he could shrug off the flesh wound and soldier on-

Not with your head damn near off your neck, you stinking fucking amateur.

No worse insult from a man like Kasoria. This was not an art, nor a calling, nor a curse. It was a profession. You treated it as such, through all the trial and tedium, or you were dead. Speaking of which, his eyes flashed to the two men still stepping over his stove, gawping at him like ninnies. Two more, then he'd get some answers.

Leave one alive. Crippled, fine, just don't let him bled out.

He drew back his gladius and the man whose face he'd pulped with his punches reared back to evade, a new dance to begin and-

"Sorry, Quin."

"Wha'?"

What?

Time froze again as Revile hurled his partner onto Kasoria's blade by his shoulders, and the assassin went down with his blade jammed in the bastard's heart.

Kasoria had to admit, it's what he would have done. Sometimes the only way to end the fight was to throw one of your men to the wolves. One of the reasons he worked alone, in fact, although some arrow fodder would come in handy from time to time.

Trapped under Quin's dying corpse, gladius impaling him through the heart and out the back, Kasoria decided that was one of those times.

"You are a tricky little cunt, I'll give you that."

Always gotta stick "little" in there, he thought with a mental roll of his eyes, struggling to squirm away from the man filling his bedroom doorway. Like I don't already bloody know.

"That was my cousin you just got killed, mate. Fuck am I gonna tell him Mum when I go see her tomorrow, eh?" The last man standing was making no move to end the job quickly, and Kasoria silently rejoiced. Oh, thank fuckery: he had a Talker. They always wanted to savor the moment, draw it out, babble on like they were in some knight's majestic tale, and not working a contract in North Sodding Etzos. "Still, more for me, I suppose. And they say it's always better when the fucker makes you work for it."

His options dwindled down to practically sod all. No way was he getting that gladius out of Quin's corpse. No way would he get back to his feet, or even his feet out from under Quin, before Revile started hammering down at him with the brass bands around his knuckles. His back (well, neck and head) was against the wall and the angry wound on his side was throbbing, pulsing, pumping harder than before.

Kasoria stopped moving next to his bed, glaring up at the cocky wanker who was going to kill him. Blood embarrassing way to go, if he had to-

Something mewled querulously to his right. Out of instinct he rolled his head over to know the source and-

-a pair of feline eyes glinted in the space under his bed. How the bloody hell he'd ended up there through all the fire and fury they'd made his house into, Kasoria had no idea. But he did recognize it, and she had a habit of staying in at night. One of the few that didn't feel the need to make his waking break a surprise tour of "Where Did I Piss Tonight?". That and she was good-natured and she was-

"Well, time to end-"

-within reach-

"-can't spend all night-"

Kasoria blinked and the mad little voice in his head was pushed aside. His arm snapped out at the angry hiss that greeted it was ignored. She wasn't a cat. She wasn't even alive. She was a tool. A means to get the result he wanted.

Everything is a weapon, he thought as he flexed his arm and Revile raised his own, monologue over and job remembered. Just have to know hot to use it.

With a wild, final cry he swept his arm up and out from under the bed. Revile's jaw dropped as eight pounds of underfed, terrified, rabid, raging, clw-tipped street cat hurtled at his face-

"fuckingshitgerofffuckercuntthefuckawwwwwfuck!"

-and landed sharp bits first.

Cocky and victorious went to screeching and bloody in the time it took for an enraged cat to wrap around his face. Revile danced and jumped and yipped and yelped and clawed at his own face as the nameless feline did what one would expect from a cat on unsteady terrain: dug in even deeper and waited for a still moment to dismount. Kasoria could have watched it for a solid break, but knew he had but trills. He grabbed Quin by one shoulder and heaved forward-

-lifting the dead weight off him, enough to wriggle his legs away from under him-

-grabbing the dead man's club as he got to one knee-

-just as Revile was finally freed, kitty leaping off him and vanishing into the night, leaving behind a spitting-mad human bleeding from a dozen different places-

Now or never.

He turned back to his prey just in time to see the grinning Kasoria swing the club low and flat from the side-

-straight into the side of his knee. He howled as the bony hinge bent in a way that no Creator had ever intended, collapsing down and-

-Kasoria was already pulling back his arm and another blow caught him around the temple before his broken kneecap had even hit the floorboards. An ink blot exploded across his eyes and covered his vision, cotton wool was stuffed in his ears but still there was the pain, bright and clear and loud and Revile tried to raise his fists.

"Fuck YOU!"

Kasoria wasn't about to give him the chance. Not for anything. Ever again. He wasn't one to chat, or gloat, or savor any moment save the one where his enemy ceased to become any sort of threat at all. His left hand jabbed up and out and punched the dazed man in the throat, hard enough to crush something important. As his hand pulled away the club came in again, and again, cracking bone after the fifth or sixth time, Revile already departed into the dreaming world and then-

Then he was beating bone and brain matter into the floorboards and there was a hole big enough for a child's fist in that bloody skull.

Leave one alive, remember?

The killer stopped pounding and looked around the house. There was no sound anymore, save for his labored, ragged breathing. Nothing and nobody was left. Just six corpses splayed and slumped around his home, ruining the floors, splattering the walls, the ceiling... Fates, his poor damned stove. So much mess to clear up. And worst of all, the more he listened... the more he knew that he was the only one left breathing.

Kasoria let himself fall back, slash on his side one big ache that was starting to spread up his torso... and heard a querying "meow" from somewhere in the kitchen.

He could have laughed. He really could. But first, he needed to find his trousers.