Fantasy RPG Forum - Standing Trials

Continued from here





The hardest part was yet to come. After the killing and the bloodshed and the intimidation, after all of it, all those facets and aspects were a man might lose his life... that was where Kasoria would find his endurance truly tested. Because of the blade that had not left his hand for most of the fight. A rare and wonderful weapon, it was. It made a man impervious to pain, the shattering and stunning and confusion that wounds could curse him with. But only while it was held. It took one of your hands away for the whole time, and eventually... you had to let go.

Kasoria swallowed and braced himself, watching the last of the Reaver-Cleavers drift away from the clutch of dark buildings, like the dregs of ale draining from a mug. Fozzie was at his feet, bleeding and battered and weeping like a woman. No threat there, at least not obviously. After a few trills, the killer shook his head and swallowed again.

Do it. Do it now and get it over with. It will get easier.

Will it?

He didn't have time to argue, not even with himself. He wiped the blade clean, fwip-fwip, first one side and then the other, against the thighs of his breeches. An old, practiced gesture. Familiar. Reassuring. Then he slid the weapon back into its sheath and-

Like hammers, like nails, like bricks-

Like blades, like arrows, like hands clutching his guts and pulling them out his throat-

Like every nightmare pain he had, clawing its way to the waking world and flaying his skin from the inside out-

It was like diving into boiling water. A beat of submersion, killing the senses, and then every nerve on your flesh started screaming at once. Kasoria swayed on his feet and then went down to one knee as all the pain he was owed struck him at once. He ground his teeth so hard he bit into his gums, feeling the severed veins in his back and shoulder still pumping blood out of him. He felt the strain and stiffness in his legs, in his arm, from where the Ithecal's tail and teeth had bit deep-

Kasoria threw back his head and roared, trying to exorcise all that pain in one furious bellow, as if he could crush all the pain into black, fetid air and launch it up at the sky. But when it was over, the pain was still there. Still throbbing and coursing and biting and hissing-

Most of all, he felt the agony in his back.Every breath stretched the flayed skin tighter, then dragged it inward... and neither one was pleasant. He tried to breath and his cracked ribs were like twigs jabbing into his lungs. He closed his eyes and he felt the cold in the air, the wind freezing the breeze. He listened to the sobbing racketeer and his gagging, wheezing lieutenant. Smelled the strange blood of an Ithecal, come so far across the world, just to die twenty feet from the water it had swam in.

Kasoria opened his eyes, and embraced the fact that he was alive. For only the living could feel pain. He stumble-staggered over to where he'd lost his karambit, the old trophy seized years before, and he retrieved it... after nearly falling over to do so. Then he heaved and pulled the gladius from Edmond's corpse, and spared a look at the now-still Exley. His face lined with purple and black veins. Eyes bulging, tongue protruding past his teeth. A horrible way to die, really. Choking on your own throat; drowning on dry land.

Kasoria took back his knife, and those he'd thrown into the Ithecal. Put everything back in place and then, then he turned back to Fozzie.

Not quite done yet.

"Please... Please don't-"

The fat man reached up with one arm, as if his pudgy digits would ward off Kasoria. All it did was make it easier from the killer's hand to snap out, grip the man about the hand and twist it in such a way-

-that Fozzie yelped and froze again, arm twisted at an unnatural angle... and suddenly he was staring into his own eyes... as Kasoria's gladius was right in front of him. A vision of the pain to come.

"Mister Vorund wants you alive." The killer's tone was different now, but not weaker. Pain hissed under every word, but so did the strength to overcome it. "Your monster is dead. Your nephews are dead. Your men are deserted. But yer business? That's still intact. An' youse are still gonna pay us, like everyone else-"

"Y-Yes, I will, please, I will-"

"An' this-" The gladius was raised high, until every inch from hilt to tip was painted silver by the skies. Fozzie's eyes bugged out of his head and his scream nearly drowned out Kasoria's last words. "-is so youse NEVER FORGET!"

The gladius came down and with a wet crunch, Fozzie's hand came off in Kasoria's. The rest of the man fell back screeching like a pig, rolling in the muck, yelling and cursing and praying, voice higher and higher with every moment-

-until Kasoria's boot in his stomach stopped him and then the little man was almost standing in his throat. The fat man looked up in horror as the killer tossed his hand into the river. He heard a splash, and whatever corner of his mind that was still thinking clearly snapped its fingers. Well, no chance to sewing it back on, now...

"Youse can bleed t'death, right now," Kasoria said, as he sheathed his gladius. "Or... youse can get over to one a' those-" He nodded to one of the braziers, still blazing in the darkness "-an' stop the bleeding. Your choice."

There was nothing left to say, so he did not speak anymore. He turned away and he started to walk. With his back and his shirt and his cloak and even his metal vest in tatters, Kasoria walked away. His steps seemed to rattle every bruised and battered bone he had with every step, but he did not look back. He wrapped his cloak around himself even tighter, ignoring how heavy and wet the back of it seemed.

Randolf. Gotta get to Randolf. Old healer will do the job, do it... do it soon...

He got into the shadows heading back to Etzos before he slumped down to his knees. His legs were going numb. So were his hands. He flapped them and felt no pain in them. Looked down and saw a bluish tinge to his fingers. He was running out of blood, and Randolf... hells, he was nearly on the other side of the city. He looked up and fought back the fear as he saw the Outer Perimeter before him, spread out in front of the high walls of Etzos like a forest of fungus up against a tree trunk.

He knew someone who lived closer. Less than half the distance and, more importantly, the time it would take to get there.

Kasoria groaned and weighed up the prospect of bleeding to death on some nameless street, against that smug, verbose, impossible wanker forever having this over his head.

Better that that death. Most things are.

Behind him, Fozzie Tatum screamed like the damned and found out that there were some possible exceptions. The brief suggestion of roasted pork wafted over to the beggar-dressed man, and Kasoria smiled. A quick flash of bloody white teeth on bloody gums, then started limping back to the city. Back to the cobbles and the smoke, to a Mortalborn who wouldn't be happy to see him, yet was likely his only hope.