Fantasy RPG Forum - Standing Trials

Continued from here



He was forty arcs old, and had become a creature of shadows, and secrets, and sinister reputation.

He waited in the tunnel where he knew his quarry would be coming. Forewarned was forearmed, they said. His master agreed with such a philosophy, and was far more proactive about gaining said warning. Flurries of whispers and rumors came flooding into his presence, like some ancient god that had all the creatures of the world telling him secrets of men and beast. He paid well, in coin and in favor. The more valuable the information, the greater the reward.

Kasoria wondered what the reward would be for the morsel that had placed him on this quiet street. Although he could guess that "not getting killed" would probably be a big chunk of it.

But not all, he reminded himself, mind chuckling even as his face and body stayed silent and still. This is Etzos. Men hold their lives dearer than that.

Metal crashed on the distant cobbles, followed a trill later by outraged feline mewls. Just the typical sounds of the city at night. Confusion and confrontation. Noise and strife, loud and sharp and then vanishing a moment later. The man in the shadows, swaddled in smelly clothes and grime on his face, wondered how many others would die tonight. No underworld feuds, no gangland battles, just the wrath and hate and weakness of humanity, spilling over into mortal deeds. He remembered a boy, long ago, who justified his new line of work by reasoning that people always killed each other. Throughout all recorded history, they'd always found reasons and justifications and excuses. A fat purse was no better or worse than any other.

The man in the shadows didn't do that anymore. After a certain point, it was petty. Pointless. Insulting, both to the dead and the man who made them so. He killed because it was his business, and he was good at it. There were no other reasons he could offer, had he any deities to beseech anyway.

Voices approached. Kasoria cocked his ear. He could tell by the tone they were the ones he was waiting for, even before the words drifted over to him as their path brought them closer.

"-this city and everyone in it! No loyalty, no trust, no sense!" An older man, bass and full of spiteful ire. Kasoria could hear his footsteps, heavy and plodding. Others were with him. More than the one he was speaking to. "Fucking bandits out by Foster's, that was the last straw. All I had left was in that caravan-"

"Not all, or you wouldn't have been able to hire us." The voice didn't sound much older in years, but Kasoria could feel the strength from it even from a distance. His face twitched a little. Of course he'd know that. He knew the man, after all. "Now how about we keep schtum while we get the fuck out of this city, hmm?"

"I'm all bloody for it! Soon as this ape gets us to the horses!"

The aforementioned ape lurched around the corner of the tunnel and by the halos of torches, the quartet grew closer. Two heavy, heaving fellows, leading and following. Two smaller ones in the middle. A fat-faced merchant with sweat dripping down his jowls, and a leaner, harder, taller man with his hand ever on his sword and his eyes always moving. Always watching.

"Almost there, boss."

"Mister Bartrok!" The merchant stressed, as if his title was so crucial to him at this, his most frayed of moments. "Is that so difficult to understand?!"

"Never mind Ray," the taller man said, soothing the stroppy arsehole he'd been saddled with. Kasoria could imagine the man easing how own worries with visions of the fat purse waiting for him at the end of this tunnel. It was definitely his way. "You wanted passage underground, away from Vorund's eyes, and this is what you get. Just mind the rat-"

There was a squelch and an outraged huff.

"... never mind."

The Ray stopped moving. Like a rolling boulder suddenly imitating a wall, he blocked the three men following. Confusion quickly turned to anger as the bodyguard and the merchant peered around him and saw the reason-

A ragged little man stepping out from the shadows. With a gladius held in one hand, and a face made no less chilling by the fire playing over it. The merchant quailed and the bodyguard by his side worked his mouth for a moment... then hung his head and chuckled into his chest.

"Well, fuck me," said Elbert, stepping around Ray and drawing his sword. "Y'right, Kas?"

"Until that day, Kas."

The beggar who was certainly not one did not say anything in reply. No cryptic, archaic response. No wry, jaded retort, one merk to another. Just stony, implacable silence. A hint of sadness in eyes that seemed drained of not just warmth, but light and liquid. Yet even so, Elbert could see a hint of something... regretful. The old man swallowed and hefted the sword in his hand.

He never forgot that weight, not matter how many years it had been with him. It was his talisman and protection. He drew strength from it, and the flesh and wit that wielded it.

"Guess I should have expected Vorund to send someone. Didn't think it'd be you."

Still silent. Still watching. Still that faint patina of woe, light as the dust that settled across them every time a wagon rumbled overhead. Trills dripped by, and still no-one was moving... and it didn't take long for Elbert to realize that was more of a problem that it should have been.

"Lads?" He said over his shoulder, not risking taking his eyes off that little sod for a moment. "Get Mister Bartrok out of here."

Kasoria's gaze flickered past Elbert. Settled on first Ray, then Colin... and then their blades came out of their sheaths. Elbert chanced a smirk. Three against one. He liked those odds. Kas was a demon with that little sword of his. A right monster, all the survivors said. But down here, in the close quarters of the tunnels, they had a chance to-

"'fraid not, Elbie."

"What in the worURK-?!"

Elbert knew what he'd be looking at before he'd turned around fully. He knew he'd been betrayed. They had been betrayed, more accurately. Him and Bartork, both. These two meatheads had been bought by Vorund like the whores they were, and like the fucking old fool he was, he'd not questioned Ray's offering a safe way he knew through the underground, to a stable they all knew of on the outskirts of the city. No, he'd been too concerned with getting the desperate merchant to double and then triple his fee for getting him safely out of Etzos, with Vorund's wolves at his heels every step of the way.

Why didn't you see it? You stupid old man.

He saw it all in the whirl of the turn. Bartrok squawking with a dagger to his throat, Colin a looming hulk behind him, other arm wrapped around the old man's torso. Ray, right in front of him, blocking the light but not enough to hide the gleaming smile of steel in his hand-

-moving towards him-

-as his own was doing the same-

Two thrusts, in two bodies, from two blades. Ray was relying on surprise, and size. He shoved his in up to the hilt, but it was a short blade. Elbert carried a bastard sword, and had thirty-something arcs of experience in using it. Ray's strike went in low, through soft flesh and vital organs, impaling both like so much wet mud-

Elbert's went in, and up. Under the rib cage. At an angle. Making the huge man's eyes pop out of his head in surprise, as with so little apparent effort, he made that bastard sword vanish... until he felt it jut out of his back, like he'd been hit with a giant's arrow. The man coughed and looked down, letting go of the dagger embedded in Elbert's chest. Both men staggered. Elbert tried to keep hold, but-

"Elb-"

Bartork's last words were drowned in blood as Colin cursed in a foreign tongue, and cut his throat to the bone. His fine clothes - the most expensive set he had left, which was to say, the only ones he had time to grab before they had to flee - were drenched, soaked, ruined. Elbert went down to his knees and felt the merest sneer stretch his lips. He was a finicky old bastard and they had no love for each other. But he'd... failed. That meant something to him. Some smidgen of professional pride... oh, fine, far more than that. Just ego, anyway. Professional pride... pah, what a joke.

"Sh... Shit..."

"You... old... cunt!" Colin barked out the words like an enraged dog. He tossed Bartork to one side and marched on the kneeling man. Ray was already on his back, breathing his last. Colin was at his side, holding his bloody hand... but all of them knew it was over. Couldn't nothing be done, as they say. "Right. I ain't fuckin' done with you yet."

Colin rose and he didn't walk, he stalked. All malevolent intent and grisly visions, dancing like demons in his eyes. A smile painted by naught but malice and smirking, certain sadism split his face, never more canine and inhuman than in that moment.

"You're gonna fuckin' beg me to... oi, fuck're you-"

There was an odd whistling sound... no, it was more like something chopping through the air. Something unused to independent movement. It whap-whaped through the dusty air and Elbert's fading mind had enough time to guess what it was before there was a silver blur in the air between him and Colin-

THUNK

-then the big man tottered backward, staring in sheer, incredulous, hilarious disbelief at the gladius lodged in his breastbone.

"Well... I'll be fucked..."

More than you know, old man.

That wasn't how you were meant to use a gladius. Not even bloody close. But not supposed and not gonna work are two very different animals.

The sword simply wasn't designed to be hurled across any distance. Sturdy economical, it was the perfect weapon for a disciplined infantry line: stabbing and thrusting and even slashing out from behind and around a shield wall. But Kasoria could never imagine a volley of the things bursting from the top of that said shield wall, like javelins or axes or arrows. Maybe if the wielder was lucky, the lazy spin of the gladius would end point-first in their target-

No. Not luck. Practice and experience.

He flipped the gladius over in his hand, catching it lightly by the blade. Ray was dead, and he knew without asking that Elbert... would probably be much the same, in a while. Ray had struck so hard with that dagger it was almost like punching the old sellsword. Bartrok was dead a moment later, throat laid open and no longer a problem. Seventeen years of being a stone in Bangun Vorund's shoe, and this was how easily his machinations and stubbornness was solved. But his killer wasn't done yet.

Brother or cousin or friend or lover, he and Ray weren't just partners. There was something more there. Something that stoked his ire and his outrage and forged some steaming hatred from it. Kasoria could tell when a man's death would be stretched out to breaks; when those that had power over that man had decided a quick release would simply not be found. So he made his decision.

Why he'd even bothered throwing a gladius wouldn't be the real question for him. Trials and seasons later, he'd ask why he did so at all.

He raised the sword high over his head, holding it two handed to balance it in his grip. He couldn't afford it wobbling on it's short, sharp path. Colin had just about realized something was off when he heaved his arms forward, letting go of the gladius when the hands gripping it were in front of his face-

-blocking out Colin-

-estimating as best he could the distance, the spin, the rotations before the sword-

THUNK

Then there was a thick, wet crack, like the sound of a crossbow bolt burying itself in a tree trunk. Colin simply couldn't believe what he was looking at. One trill he was all set to enjoy his revenge for poor fucking Ray, and the next he was staring at two feet of steel growing out of his chest. His breastbone was all but snapped in half, and every breath bought pain now. An army of daggers biting and sticking and needling his lungs. But Colin didn't get this far in Etzos without learning to manage his pain. He breathed deep and ignored it. He gripped the blade and ignored it. And even as he sunk to his knees and started to pull, he just grit his teeth and-

Kasoria strolled over and slammed the bottom of his boot against the end of the sword impaling the man. Driving it through his quivering heart and severing his spine as it went. Colin's agonized yet determined expression was destroyed like a vase hit by a sledgehammer. Hope died with it. He lay back - awkwardly, with half a foot of steel sticking out your back - and looked up at the man who'd killed him.

"Wh... Why... I don't... We..."

The bearded man with the wild hair looked down at him, light from the torches not touching his face. The mask of shadows stayed in place, even covering the black eyes that Colin knew were staring down at him. They'd had a deal, damnit! They deliver Bartrok and they get double what he was paying them. Not only that, they get in good with Vorund and boom, that's their next employer settled and signed on with. But this... this wasn't the plan. This wasn't the deal!

Kasoria gave him no answers; no peace of enlightenment, before his Last Blink. He just reached down... and when he pulled his gladius out of Colin, the man barely felt it. When he did, it was like... someone else was feeling the pain. Some other body that was bleeding out and growing cold on some dirty tunnel floor. He wondered again what the fuck was going on, clinging to that thought even as he died-

He never got the chance to ask it. Kasoria watched his eyes become blank stones, and knew it was over.

"Fuck, Kas... never knew you cared."

There was nothing to be done and they both knew it. Even if Kasoria hefted Elbert over his shoulders, stomped his way back up the tunnel, carried him to the best healer or apothecary he knew, paid whatever he asked... it would only buy him breaks. And they would not be pleasant. The killer looked down, gladius still in his hand, held like an outlandishly-sized dagger rather than a sword, and slowly lowered himself down.

The wound looked familiar. Seventeen arcs and he still remembered that bandit. How it looked like something ragged and furious had torn its way out of his stomach, leaving red wreckage in its wake. Now he was looking at Elbert, the man who caused that first wound, back when he was barely a man.

"Shite..." Elbert winced as he shuffled, slowly and carefully, so his back was to the wall. Both hands were pressed around the dagger still in his guts. "Don't... suppose you got... anything t'drink?"

"No."

"Heh... never were one for talking, were you, Kas?" The dying man chuckled and looked around and away. Back into the past where things were green and still had futures. "Not now, anyway. Not... Not anymore..."

The little man with the shaggy head bowed his head for a moment. The dying man's hands flexed, then fell away to his sides. Now Kasoria could see all the gory horror of what Ray had done to the man that had saved him. Double-edged, broader at the bottom, narrow at the tip. Designed for puncturing through flesh, between bones, and then carving open up as big and nasty a wound as he could.

"Why... Why'd you...do it?"

He looked into the man's face, and he was not Kasoria. He was not the Raggedy Man. He was not the nightmare nor the bloody whispers that hissed in dark corners of the underground; he was a boy twenty-three arcs in the world, with wide eyes and much to learn. Elbert seemed to see the same, and he smiled, even as his face grew pale, and-

Rustling. Shuffling. Scraping.

Kasoria remembered more than just what he was. He remembered that bandit.

What he tried to do. What Elbert did to stop him. How he'd seen it coming-

-just like now, with his hand closing around a dagger strapped to his back and-

SHHHKKKK

Holding the gladius proper, he probably wouldn't have made it. This close to the mark, he'd have had to lean back before swinging, give the blade some room, or he'd just be bashing the hilt against Elbert's neck. But held in reverse, the blade was underneath. His arm flashed in front of him, sideways, blade fast as a flying arrow-

-slicing through Elbert's throat before the dagger had even been raised.

It clattered onto the cobbles and Elbert did not clutch his throat. What was the point, anyway? He coughed and his eyes bulged, but only for a moment. He tried to breath through his mouth and then coughed through the gash Kasoria had given him. Trills of horror and pain and then... they turned to resignation, even annoyance before the younger man's eyes.

Elbert's eyes glittered in the shadows. Only his legs and trunk and hands were in the light. As he spoke, shimmering arcs of crimson drizzled down from the black void where his head was. Soaking into his shirt.

"Yuch... Yuch... bashshtud... Kash..."

Kasoria nodded, and what followed next still did not surprise him. A trembling hand was raised. Not beseeching, but expecting. White as the dust caking the floor. Kasoria took it without a query, or a hesitation. Held it and the gaze of those hidden eyes. Squatted in the dust and the blood and the wreckage and the memories and he was silent as his legend said he would be. But his eyes spoke, and Elbert's teeth glimmered.

There was an uproar above them, and more dust fell. There was more clamor in the distant darkness, that fell to silence and mystery again. Kasoria held the man's hand until the grip was gone. So his friend would not die alone.