• Mature • II. A Maggot-Minded, Starved, Fanatic Crew

[Kasoria]

23rd Trial, Cylus, 719a
Mistral Woods, northwest of Mistral Village
Dusk

Continued from here

"Shouldan't a' killed that baby."

"Oh? Why's that?"

"Could a' sold it."

Fat Dev quirked an eyebrow at his companion, but found no mockery in that brand-marked face. Felton just scratched around the "R" burned into his cheek arcs ago, and shrugged.

"What? Get good money fer a kid. Healthy an' fresh an' all that."

Fat Dev snorted, a sound very much like a pig coming from a man who remained skeletal no matter how much he gorged (never underestimate the criminal underworld's appreciation for ironic nicknames). He shifted on his rock and ran his eyes over the dark tangle of bushes, trees, scrub and branches in front of them. It might have been boring as fuck, but it still needed to be done. His eyes didn't waver again, fixed on the expanse in front of the cave mouth.

"Bollocks we would. Too much fuckin' work, sneakin' around to sell him t'some slaver. Ain't many a' them around, either."

"See, Dev, that's yer problem." Felton tapped the side of his head and smiled in that twisted way his brand forced his lips to adopt. "Yeh've got no vision. Now, did I say slave? Nah. I jus' said sellin' the kid. So, youse find some family can't 'ave kids, they're all grateful-"

"Wait-wait-wait." Dev held up a hand and decided he could avert his gaze for a few moments. He looked over at Felton, leaning on his shortspear. "Find a family?"

"Aye."

"That can't have kids?"

"Yeah."

"An' sell the baby to 'em?"

"That's it!"

"Stop drinkin' on watch, I swear to fuck-"

"No fuckin' vision, s'what it is-"

"What in hell's name are you two jawing about now?"

Both men turned as the dark behind them spat out a sauntering figure. Tall, well-built, every inch the Andaris minor nobility he'd once been (to hear him tell it, anyway). Lamas shook his head as he exited the cave, squinting in sudden glare of torchlight. He sighed at the sight of it, gesturing with a hand that almost looked... manicured.

"What did the boss tell you about that? No more torches"

"Well, we can't see without it-"

Lamas rolled his eyes and pointed upward. "No clouds and the moon's out. Give it a quarter-break, and your eyes will adjust, and you won't need the torches."

The two guards exchanged glances, as if they were speaking in some slovenly, loutish mind-speech. Fates, that he should have fallen so fucking far, to be entreating some shred of common sense from morons. They were fine in a fight, or a pillage, but anything that required a little finesse and they just stared like cattle. Lama sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. There they were, in the deep woods, hiding out, seeking anonymity... and they had torches blazing.

Tolerate it while you have to. Keep adding to your share of the plunder. Another arc, two at the most, you'll have enough to go home.

"Youse want us to do that before, or after you go for a piss?"

Lamas' patrician face darkened and he glared at Fat Dev. Who just grinned back with his skin stretched too tight over his face, shadows deep and sharp like he was a skull with eyes shoved into it.

... and maybe extract a little bloody satisfaction on the way out the door.

"After. Next time I see them burning, I'll tell the boss. And I'll watch what he does to you both with a smile on my face."

They didn't have anything else to say, the cowards. Mainly because they contented themselves with thinking it. Well, in fairness, Dev hoisted up his middle finger to the swaggering wanker's back, and Felton made the old fist-shake-from-side-to-side gesture at the same time. One could hurl an insult silently, after all. Both men smirked at each other as they watched Lamas stride across the dead grass and to the edge of the illuminated circle. They heard buttons undo and then... after a moment...

"Aye, no mistakin' piss when y'hear it."

"Smell it, too. How many trials we been usin' that spot?"

"Too fuckin' many, I reckon. Needs to be shoveled over, y'ask me."

"Aye, well, you'll be the one-"

SHUNK

They weren't educated men by any means, but when it came to violence and mayhem, they were practically scholars. Their heads snapped around to the noise and their hands were already filling with weaponry as they did. Lama staggered a handful of steps back, trying to speak, by the sounds of it. The two guardians of the cave started forwards, squinting in the flickering orange light cast about the man skittering and swaying over the dirt. Until he turned around and-

-they could see the arrow sticking out of his throat, blood welling and dripping from around the shaft-

"Fuck me!"

-eyes wide and pleading as he reached out, then fell to his hands and knees and vomited blood-

Felton drew his sword out of his sheath, and the torchlight caught the steel as it went. It cast a shard of light around them and it caught Fat Dev's eye. He followed it, and saw the thing that rose up from the shrubs flanking the cave entrance. Something that rose and lunged in the same, brutally fast movement. He couldn't make out features. Just that it was human, with burning black eyes, and claws, that gleamed and-

No. Not claws. A blade.

Kasoria jammed the throwing knife into the side of Felton's neck with one hand, jamming his other over his mouth. The scream that spewed against his hand in a rush of hot, sticky blood died there, dripping out between his fingers as he held the guard's head there, braced himself and-

"Sh-Shit-"

-ripped the blade out the front of the rapist's throat, tearing apart his voice box, severing his arteries-

-and he kept moving, letting the man go and topple over, following the movement to his right until he was spinning around, enough to face Dev again-

-letting the throwing knife go in a backhanded hurl. An easy shot over less than ten feet. A straight line of blurred silver in the forbidden torchlight, that whistled lowly across the air as Dev's scream started to gurgle out of his cadaverous face-

SHUNK

The bandit's head snapped back with a slight crack as the knife caught him in the eye. His remaining one twitched and stared up and... well... it really was a starry night. The moon was fat and round and beautiful. He tried to say something but there was an inch or two of steel through his brain. His thoughts wouldn't fire, and his body wouldn't obey. He didn't even feel himself sink down to his knees; he wasn't really aware of falling backwards. The moon and her attendant stars were his world now. Dev gurgled deep in his throat with his last breath, and let the sight of beauty be the last thing he saw in an ugly life.

Lamas was not so lucky.

"He ain't dead yet?"

Kasoria looked over at the choking man with the trimmed beard and shook his head. But he didn't do anything about it. Just stooped down and reclaimed his knife, wiping it swiftly on Dev's back. Shuf-shuf, both sides, then back into its sheath. Walden crept from the shadows he'd been hiding in, a few arrow notched in his bow. He grimaced as he looked down at Lamas. Turned over onto his side, pool of blood expanding around him... reaching out for his boot... pleading without words, lips barely moving.

"Youse comin' down wi' me?"

"Bollocks t'that. I got you here, rest is yours." The Warden couldn't look away from what he'd done. Kasoria snorted and turned away. A doomed man wasn't worth worrying about; you knew what would happen to him anyway. "Besides, you... you need someone up here, in case any come rushin' out."

Kasoria could have pointed out that there was obviously more than once entrance, but he bit his tongue. He worked better alone, anyway, and what good would a longbow be down there in the narrow tunnels? Instead, he contented himself with feeling the heavy, comforting weight of an ax in his hand... then looked down at the helmet that had fallen off the boy whose throat he'd ripped out.

"Hmm..."

"What?"

"Just an idea," Kasoria said as he put the helmet on, turning towards the cave and filling his other hands with another throwing knife. "Have t'wait t'see if it works."

Walden finally tore his gaze away from the dying man, who'd gone from flushed red to pale white in a handful of bits. He circled around him and the scarlet pool he'd made... but his eyes still followed him. Just fucking die, would you, he begged silently. Kasoria stood at one side of the cave, head cocked to one side as he listened to the faint noises from within.

"Well, we've been waitin' all trial. Few more breaks-"

"Won't be the worst of it," Kasoria said, too calm, too serene, not even noticing those eyes staring at him. Fucking barbarian. "Get back to yer shadows, Warden. In case any come... rushin' out."

Walden scowled and Kasoria ignored him. The Warden melted back into his woods, forcing himself not to look down at the man he'd killed, with nary a chance to defend himself. The bounty hunter's eyes slid from the cave mouth to Lamas. He watched as those eyes lost that shine, that gleam, that unmistakable glow of life and animation. Until they became just sightless orbs in a death mask. Then he turned back to the yawning blackness, and strained his ears.

In your own time, lads...

[Kasoria]

The little folk came for them the previous night, though one couldn't tell, since it was Cylus. Night and trial were human abstractions in such a season; merely ways of counting the trials, marking the times of work and rest, waking and sleeping. The bells tolled and said that it was dusk, but all Kasoria could see was more impenetrable darkness.

But for the moon. She rose, fat and happy, and if it were actual night, not this endless gloom. During the breaks where sunlight should have been, he saw her not. Just more stars, more dark. He was eating a supper in the tavern when Walden jogged his elbow. He pointed to the window and a little figure was beyond the glass, gesturing to them. He leaned over, opened a window, and-

"About time! It's cold out here!"

"I remember you," Kasoria said around a mouthful of stew. "Youse were wiv' Jahrowko this mornin'."

The Tunawa drew himself up to his full height, which made Kasoria wince since he had... quite the appendage dangling from him, and very little to hide it. He looked away as the moss-colored creature spoke, voice filled with purpose and pride.

"I am Sheensar, bondsman and guardian of Jahrowko. For your sake, I leave his side, and my duty. So be appropriately grateful, human."

The humans in question gave each other a look, and were in perfect agreement for once: it wasn't worth needling the little git. Besides, Kasoria reminded himself, you're living proof that Giant don't mean Dangerous.

"Then we'll not keep yeh longer than we have to. Warden? Pay for the meal, woodja?"

"Wanker..."

They bundled up as best they good against the chilly wind tickling their faces, seeking entry into any crack of crevice of their clothing. The Tunawa flitted ahead of them, wrapped up tight in a cloak that seemed equal parts animal leather and moss. Laden with their weapons - one more than the other, obviously - the two humans trudged away from Mistral Village, until they came to the edge of the Woods... and lights that should not have been there.

"What in the hells...?"

A bluish-white glow was emanating from the ground. Three bowls, narrow and high-sided, had been placed just beyond the treeline, and from each one emanated an unearthly glow. Walden leaned over one cautiously, and Kasoria saw his face lit like he'd been pelted with blueberries, eyebrows shooting up-

"That's... worms?"

"Grubs, actually," Sheensar corrected him, picking up one of the bowls and hoisting it over his shoulder. The humans could carry theirs and not even use all their fingers. "Come Ashan, they crawl back into the trees and emerge as Pink-Petal Butterflies. But during Cylus, they burrow deep in the wood and dirt. So deep there's no light."

"So they made their own?"

Sheensar nodded with just a tinge of respect in Kasoria's direction. "Perhaps. More likely, our Mother and Father granted them the gift of illumination, so that they could find food easier, and survive to grow into beauty. Either way, they're useful for lighting the dark times, without needing... fire."

Kasoria caught the involuntary verbal shudder before the last word, and decided to focus on that, rather than any cryptic references to the fucking Immortals. Fates, would he be happy when he was back home, among the enlightened, and he wouldn't have to listen to that shite trial after trial. Even now, it made him shake his head. All those men, from generations ago, dead for nothing, if even one intelligent soul still worshiped those monsters.

Rein it in and keep your head in the present. You're on the job.

"Follow me."

They did, and they did so carefully. The Glow Grubs were enough to light a small circle around each person - well, a large one around Sheensar - but they couldn't do much else. Once the forest swallowed them proper, Kasoria could barely make out the sky through the blanket of trees above them. He picked carefully across grass and fallen trees and brambles and stones and innumerable other obstacles. Their tiny guide hopped and skipped with an energy that seemed unnatural, and unlikely. After all, every step for them was ten for him. And yet, after Fates knew how many breaks, they were panting, and he was not.

"Not much further," he said with a cheer that made Kasoria swallow a curse along with some bile. "You'll see it soon."

"See what?"

"What you'll see."

"Very funny."

"Thank you!"

Walden strode past Kasoria with a smile on his face. The Etzori could see the slash of white teeth, stained blue by the wriggling creatures. "Makin' friends all the while, ain't ya, bounty hunter?"

Kasoria didn't rise to it. Just kept walking, kept listening, kept straining his eyes uselessly against the black and the shards of sky and the eerie blue glow. But the little man was right: when he saw it, he knew what he was looking for. Long before they got close to it, the three of them could see a larger, fiercer glow at ground level. Something that was burning with light, not just pulsing with it. Kasoria cocked his head to the side and heard words made into whispers by distance... and the crackle of flames beyond them.

"That is where they hide," Sheensar said, pointing at the glow beyond the trees. "That Horned Daemon and his followers. Under the ground. In the dark."

"Like grubs."

"Very funny."

Now it was Kasoria's turn to smile. "Thank you."

"This is as far as I go. These are human affairs; humans will settle them, not Tunawa. But when it is done, I shall know, and lead you out again back to your village."

"His village, wee man," Kasoria said, voice a little lighter now the end of the road was in sight. "Not mine. I'm just the help."

"The what?"

"Never mind. Keep an eye out, we'll not be long."

There was no answer. When he looked around, there was no Tunawa, either. Not him nor his cloak nor his bowl of grubs. All three had vanished into the undergrowth. Kasoria wondered how the little man could make the light of the grubs vanish but... no, he didn't need to ponder too deeply into that. Walden was next to him now, eyes fixed on the orange and yellow light, like a deficient sun grabbed to the ground.

"Less 'ave a look, then..."

They crept and they slunk and they covered a two bit walk in about twenty, such was their caution. Walden notched an arrow and held the bow ready, two fingers keeping the bowstring taut as he took each step carefully through the undergrowth. Kasoria did much the same, a throwing knife in one hand, and his karambit in the other. Both had left their grubs behind, not wanting to alert their targets to their presence. As they got closer, he trees thinned, and finally-

"Stop here."

Walden did as he was told, and both men looked out into the clearing before the cave. The mouth of it yawned and stretched up twice as high as a man, carved by millions of arcs into the side of a hill covered in trees. A torch was burning in front of it, just a thick branch with stuffing and cloth and tar set ablaze. But that wasn't what caught their eyes: it was the men leaning up against either side of the cave mouth.

"They're supposed t'be hiding."

"Huh?"

"Them." Kasoria said, gesturing with a jut of his chin as he whispered. "They're supposed to be hiding, an' what do they do, in the middle of a dark season a' the arc? Light a bloody fire in the middle of the fucking woods." He shook his head at such sloppiness, unable to stop his... professional opinion from coloring his words. "Bloody shameful."

"Yeah, well, you can tell 'em that when you kill the fuckers. Now, how're you doin' this?"

Kasoria was quiet for a while as he pondered the question. The whole while he crouched there, pondering and wondering, his nostrils twitched. After a while he sniffed and followed his nose. The emanation, foul and rotting, was coming from a sunken patch off beyond the flame-lit clearing. Piss and shit and maybe some vomit, by the stink. Walden may have missed it, and Kasoria was surprised he hadn't; living in a city where indoor plumbing was for the rich, you just sort of got used to it. But out here, so rank and deep and human, Kasoria noticed... and a plan formed.

"A'right. Gonna wait fer someone t'use the privy."

"The what? Where?"

"That patch, 'bout thirty paces an' to the right. Wait for someone to go there, an' you put an arrow in them."

"What?!"

"Keep your fucking voice down!"

Both men glared sullenly at each other in the dark, before looking at the cave entrance instead. No movement. No challenge. Not even a "huh?" of surprise at the low burst of noise from Walden. They were too busy talking, one of them nipping from a skin of something "for the cold" every now and then. Unseen and undisturbed, Kasoria turned his eyes back to Walden.

"S'all you need to do. Nail one of 'em, quick an' clean. You any good with that thing?"

Walden snorted. "Good? I can skewer a rabbit at fifty pace. Running."

"Prove it." Kasoria pointed at the cave mouth. "First cunt that goes over there for a piss, you kill him."

"An' what'll you be doin'?"

"I'm gonna work my way around to the side. When one of 'em goes, an' you pop 'im, I'll take the other one."

To his credit, Walden didn't take long to ask the obvious question. "What if someone else goes for a piss, not one a' them?"

Kasoria pondered this for a moment, then shrugged. "Then I'll kill 'em both. Important thing is, you gotta kill the pisser, y'see? Focus them on that, have their eyes on that... and not the bastard bounty hunter comin' at 'em from the side."

Walden's eyes widened for a moment, and he nodded. Kasoria swore he could see some glimmer of respect in those remarkably sober eyes, probably the first he'd garnered from the Warden since they'd met. The younger man shifted his stance, and looked away. He gauged distance with a squint, judging that the shot from where he was to the half-dug latrine was... definitely within his range. He lowered himself to the ground and flexed his fingers around first bow, then string and arrow.

"Better get movin', then. They're probably down there gettin' pissed up."

Walden looked around, but the little man from Etzos was already gone.

"Very fucking funny..."

[Kasoria]

"Got that fuckin' torch lit again."

"Fuck's sake, boss'll 'ave their balls, this time."

"Aye. Fuckin' literally."

Unruk didn't like the nasty edge to Yoncy's smile when he said that. Boy barely knew how to shave and already his eyes danced when the Big Man did something fucking horrible. Long as it wasn't to him... but it was more than that. Unruk had been reaving and raiding with Kev for long enough, seen plenty of boys come and go, to know the difference. That is, between a man who laughs along during an atrocity because he wants to blend in, maybe feel a twinge of relief it isn't him being brutalized... and a man who honestly, genuinely, enjoys what he's looking at. Stranger or friend, bandsman or victim, it didn't seem to matter to Yoncy.

"Aye. Well." He shifted his eyes back up to the mouth of the cave, that circle of blazing light at the end of the tunnel. "Maybe he'll let 'em off with a beating."

"Oh, aye? Not likely. Remember that baby?"

There it is again, Unruk thought with a grind of his teeth. That fucking smile. That happy voice. Fucking lunatic.

The older man smiled and kept walking up the tunnel. No point talking to the boy; he was cracked, obviously. Instead he kept peering out into the night and the flame beyond the dark, warm place they all called home. Now there was anger on his face, and not just because of the nutter he had with him.

"Oi? Where are you?" He shouted and nothing stirred. The hair on the back of his neck started to tingle. "Fuck did Lamas get to? An' why are-"

Suddenly a figure popped into view. Head smoothed into a dome and shorn of its ears by the helmet it wore. Fat Dev, Unruk knew without being told. He loved his helmet, taken from a guardsman a few seasons ago. There was a deep gouge where an arrow had pinged off it not long after, and since then the man hardly ever took it off. He started walking towards them, ax over one shoulder, face inscrutable with the fire behind him and none in front.

"Dev, where the fuck is Lamas? And where's Felly?"

"Eh?"

That was all they got from him, and Unruk rolled his eyes. Yoncy just snickered, probably relishing the savagery to come soon. They stomped closer to each other and Unruk's brow crushed his eyes as he tried to pierce the gloom. "Look, I know you can hear me! An' since when did you carry an a-"

He never got to finish the word. The man he'd been calling "Dev" threw out his other arm and something bright and silver flew from it. Tossed underarm, the man had to get close enough for such a move to work. Thanks to the helmet, and the darkness, he got his wish-

-and the throwing knife buried itself in Unruk's throat, making him stagger and choke and cough and all thoughts of Yoncy and Dev were gone and he was scrambling at his own neck even as it pissed blood and he was drowning-

"F-Fu-"

The man who was not Fat Dev didn't give Yoncy a chance to even curse. The blade had barely left his hand before he lunged forwards, ax whirling from his shoulder in a short, savage chop-

THUNK

-that caught Yoncy square in the side of the neck, like he was hacking down a tree. He heard bones break and muscles rend, ripping the blade free a moment later to see a river, a fountain, an eruption of scarlet dancing up in the scraps of torchlight that managed to squirm around his silhouette. Yoncy collapsed onto his back, trying not to much to hold the wound close as keep his fucking head on his shoulders, but both efforts were in vain. His spin was crushed, his throat was cleaved. He died in moments, not understanding, not even knowing who killed him.

Unruk was older, tougher, and meaner. He knew a mortal wound, even when it was inflicted upon himself. But he wasn't about to die without a sound, not a bang but whimper. The man wearing Dev's helmet started as the bald bandit grunted, ripped the blade free out of his throat and then with a gargling cry that sprayed blood into the damp air-

"HELP! HELP UP HERE! THERE'S-"

"Fuckin' cunt-"

CRUNCH

Kasoria spat out a curse and drowned whatever else he said in the meaty, hideous sound of his ax crashing through Unruk's head. The old man's face went from defiant to comical in an instant, or would had been, had his face not been bisected by a cruel, curved ax-head. The rest of his call to arms died in that instant, brain sliced away from the organs it wished to command. The bandit twitched and jerked on his feet for a bit longer, still not quite understanding he was dead... until Kasoria yanked the blade free, and he fell down like a puppet with cut strings.

There was silence for a moment in the tunnel, but only a moment.

He could hear them stirring. Them, truly, but it sounded more than that. A babble of voices, confused or angry or curious, all talking together. Melding and joining and echoing off the rocks towards him. Then he squinted as one seemed to silence them all. A deep, bass thing full of cold, cruel command. The chaos was replaced by order; now the beast with many voices spoke with one, and Kasoria knew who.

The bounty hunter sighed, and dropped his ax. It had served it's purpose, but he didn't think it would be much good in the close confines of the tunnels. Not as much as the gladius he drew with one hand... and the karambit with his other. Both hands flexed around their handles. Five so far. There couldn't be many left, and then he'd deal with the Horned Daemon.

"A'right," he said to himself, staring into the darkness where the beasts babbled. "Less go t'work..."

Continued here

[Strange]

Thread Review

Kasoria

Kasoria

Skill Points: +10 (cannot be used for magic)
Magic XP: None.

Renown: None.

Injuries/Overstepping: None.
Wealth Points: None.
Loot: None.

Skill Knowledges:

• Axes & Bludgeons (Waraxe): Diagonal Chop to the Neck
• Axes & Bludgeons (Waraxe): Not an Ideal Weapon for Confined Spaces
• Disguise: Sometimes a Silhouette in the Darkness is Deception Enough
• Stealth: Creeping through Undergrowth
• Throwing (Knives): Aiming for the Throat
• Throwing (Knives): Weapons of Speed, and Stealth

Non-Skill Knowledges:

• NPC Sheensar: Tunawa Bondsman and Guardian of Jahrowko
• Nature: Glow Grubs of Mistral Woods

Notes: individual character comments, etc.

Another well-framed premise into a torrent of effective violence. Walden provides an excellent foil for Kasoria in this thread.

The transition between the first and second post was slightly jarring due to the backward time skip of it, but it also proved to be a bold lead-in that offered a different sort of tension due to the reader's knowledge of exactly how Kasoria's plan would turn out (having already read the consequence). I appreciated that the third post continued past the end of the first post's scene, rather than repeat the initial scene through Kasoria's POV or similar.

It was great to see Kasoria display a sense of humor also.

Excellent job and enjoy your rewards!

PM me if you have any questions, issues or concerns.

Total Word Count: 4,598 words.

Review Request Link: viewtopic.php?p=116307#p116307
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