The surrounding lands of Rharne boast several towns and settlements that lie on the northern shores of the River Zynyx. This includes Mistral Village, Caervalle Town, Zynyx Market and Volta.
He could tell that those he sought were around the next corner. The lights blazed brighter, as if concentrated around one great, important, communal space. There were the smells of burnt meat, stale beer, stinking poultices and even stewed vegetables. When the sight and smell assailed his nostrils, he slowed... and that's when he could hear the sounds more closely.
Kasoria closed his eyes. Ah. The faintest hiss of whispered words. The trick was, to exhale before you spoke, so your words carried no extra gust that would scrape into the air. He cocked his head to the side... and smiled softly.
"Just be ready fer when he comes."
"Boss, we've been-"
"Shut up!"
They know you're coming, Kasoria thought. They're waiting for you. What have they got planned, I wonder?
It doesn't matter, he murmured back for the second time within his own skull. He wiped his gladius clean on his breeches, then sheathed it. Then he did the same with his karambit. Thrown blades, hatchets, arrows, bolts, fucking cats loaded with poison and covered in burning pitch... it'll all be the same.
Hopefully.
He drew the cutlass slowly, careful not to allow any scrape of metal on leather to betray his presence. He didn't need long, but he did need at least some time. He hefted the unfamiliar blade, testing the weight and length and balance. It would have to work. This was his now, and any weapon he carried had to be as intrinsic to his being as his fingers or his toes. Kasoria peered along the edge of the blade... and smiled again.
We'll see if your gift was worth the asking. But mine comes first.
With that last thought, the bounty hunter drowned out his muttering mind and closed his eyes. He raised his arm... and began to slowly clench his fist. So slow that the action seemed to be slowed down, as if time were crawling through mud. This was the time he needed. To dig into that well he carried within himself; that Sima from Etzos and his own meditations had seen him grow to attuned with. A half-smile graced his lips as he felt it. The power of his Spark, crackling and winding through his bones and blood and flesh and soul. Pulsing gently and coming up at his bidding. Like a beast in deep waters urged to surface, like a wellspring of power that flowed-
-up, and out of his forearm-
-and began to spread into the air in front of his cocked limb. He held it out, bent at the elbow, as if expecting some unseen falcon to alight upon his wrist... but instead waves of magic rippled out from his flesh. Like ripples across water, they contorted and twisted the air... but they did not go far. They seemed to stop in the shape of a rough circle, maybe three feet wide and tall. Not by accident, of course. Kasoria's face hadn't poured sweat or been so pinched with concentration when he'd been swinging steel. Not it was shining with effort.
A shield. Just like you've used before. Remember what you were told: use your own memories, your own experiences, to form your magic.
Kasoria knew shields. He didn't like them, but he appreciated them. He'd used them before, back when he as training for the Black Guard of Etzos. The tower shields they'd been trained to use for breaking up crowds and protecting the well-to-do, and these things. Round, strapped to the forearm, a circle of protection from neck to knees. Only this one was not of ribbed wood with metal linings. This was glowing, throbbing blue-white energy that grew straight out of his arm, denser and denser as he poured more power into it. After a while, Kasoria opened his eyes, and couldn't see clearly through it. The shield had become hard, or rather, made the air it occupied thus. He moved it up... and down... and aside from a faint shimmer on the edges, it kept its shape.
He lowered his arm to his side, and the shield did not dissapate. He knew it wouldn't last forever, of course. Even now, he could feel the embers of the prickling, grinding, gnawing exertion that would warn him of overstepping. But he didn't need it to work for long. Just long enough to make his point.
Kasoria took a breath, and exhaled. Then he started marching, not just walking. Crunching gravel and dirt and stone, letting everyone hear the faint echoes of his leather shoes. The whistling whispers stopped just before he reached the blazing doorway, for want of a better word. The mage licked his lips, gripped his cutlass, and held steady his "shield".
Time to find out if all the practice was worth it.
He stepped through the doorway, and all he heard was-
"FIRE!"
word count: 845
Common Speech | Thoughts | Ith'ession Speech | Speech of Others
No matter the strength or speed or skill of a man, they were all mortal. A little slow, a little off balance, a slip or a shudder in the heat of battle and wham, even the mightiest warrior could be laid low. That had been something Kevyan had learned throughout his "career": there was no such thing as The Best. Only the best for that day, for that moment.
Because you might be hot shit with a blade, but what happens when someone comes at you with a bow? Or three?
"Mastes watch over me, Chrien protect me. Master watch over me, Chrien protect me..."
The towering bandit chief glared at the man to his side. Giunta was shaking so hard that the crossbow he held was clattering and shaking in his hands. He was amazed he was even managing to point it at the right fucking opening. Mumbling and muttering to the fucking Immortals with every shuddering breath. As if they would appear in a flash of light and sound and save them from... whatever it was coming for them.
A man. Just a man. Don't forget that.
"Shut your fucking hole," the raider growled, infusing his words with the savagery that had quailed grown and hardened men countless times before. "Don't spook the cunt."
"S-Sorry."
Kev grunted and looked to his other side, catching the eye of the short, stocky man standing there. Ardres flicked a serpentine gaze over at the two of them, then flicked his eyes right back to the opening. The shortbow in his hands did not waver; the tip of the arrow barely moved. His arm had not fully completed the draw, but Kev knew that he could pull it taut and let fly in a heartbeat. No, Ardres wouldn't be a problem. He'd sent his arrows crashing into eyes and throats and hearts plenty of times before, all with that same, serene expression on his face. This would be no different.
Then he saw the poacher swallow. A bead of sweat upon his brow. The master of both archers shook his head in disgust, and sighted back down the length of the crossbow in his own hands. Small as a child's toy in his meaty mitts, better suited to swinging that huge ax than this dainty thing. But it granted him distance, and speed. He'd decided they'd use both to quell this... incursion.
Someone screamed from outside the cavern. The sound buffeted and echoed off the stones walls until it rose to a banshee shriek. A death wail, piercing and vast, then cut short with chilling finality. Not the first they'd heard. Not the first, nor the last, accompanied by clashing steel and feral shouts and oaths. All ending in silence. And faint, approaching footsteps...
It's just a man. Just a-
"... the fuck?"
Something was burning in the tunnel. No, not burning; there was no orange or yellow flare of light, crackling softly as waves of fire licked upwards. This was a glow. A slow, steady pulse of blue-white... energy. Kev frowned as the word popped into his head. Hairs shuddered across the trunk-like arms as some force, some power beyond that of flesh and bone was worked in the presence. He opened his mouth to repeat the query when they heard footsteps, close and urgent-
"Ge'reddy."
-and a little man rounded the corner with a glowing fucking shield and Kev ignored it, forced himself to bellow the word-
"FIRE!"
Three bow strings thrummed and twanged at almost the same moment. Bolts and arrow flew towards a stationery target a mere thirty feet away. Child's play for even a novice bowman. Yet the little man just raised his shield and the missiles-
Kev's jaw dropped, mouth incredulous while his eyes raged. That... there was just no word for that sound. It was like wood snapping without any metal or stone or bronze of an ax with it. It was like bones breaking without any force applied to limb or torso. The missiles smacked into the shield and where each landed, there was a flare of light, like sunspots bursting from a star... but no penetration. The ends of each missile snapped off and they fell at the feet of the mage. In the silence that followed, the man lowered the shield, and he smiled.
Keep feeding it, Kasoria reminded himself, forcing the smile to stay on his face, not letting them see or guess at the strain it took to keep the magic flowing from his Spark into the Shield. Remember, you're putting on a show.
"F-F-Fuck me!"
Giunta lost it was admirable speed, if one were judging a new standard of cowardice. He dropped the crossbow and backed away from the weapon and Kev and the approaching mage, hands up in supplication. Kev rounded on him and snarled, cursing in a tongue that Kasoria didn't recognize. But he did recognize the thick, curling horns on the helmet the man wore. The sheer bulk of the figure, big as the other two men put together... and finally, the ax strapped across his back. Long as Kasoria was tall, with a massive, razor-sharp head half as big as his torso.
The other flunky did not panic, at least not in an obvious way. There was a muttered curse and Ardres reached over his shoulder for a fresh arrow, nocking and drawing and-
-that same sound again, as he raised the Shield. Kasoria could see through the hazy, foggy substance of the magical construct. Just barely. But enough for his eyes to widen in wonder as he saw the arrow speed towards him, fast as a flying bird, even faster... and then shatter against the barrier he'd crafted with his own Spark and will. It joined the ruins of the other three, and now he was closer, as Ardres reach up again-
Enough.
-but Kasoria's shield hand snapped to the brace of throwing knives sheathed under his right armpit. He drew one and flung it backhanded across fifteen feet, just as the bowman pulled another arrow from his quiver-
-then yelped as the throwing knife nailed him in the shoulder. He dropped his bow and his hand went up to the wound, trying to pull the knife free. Kev turned back to him, ignoring the gibbering wreck of Giunta. All of them regarded the invader now. Kasoria smiled thinly... and stepped to one side. With hus cutlass he gestured to the opening he'd just come from.
"Go now, and live," he said in slow, accented Common. "Or stay, and die with yer master."
Silence again. A wry, deep, ugly chuckle broke it. Kev's massive shoulders bobbed and shook as the chuckle became a laugh, booming out, loud as the shrieks that had echoed through the cave earlier. The arrogance of this little cunt. The sheer balls of him. He smirked and then he saw-
"What are you doing?!"
Giunta and Ardres both scampered for the time-carved doorway, the latter clutching his bleeding shoulder. Both gave Kasoria a wide berth, faces lit up white and blue and fearful in the glow of his magical shield. Giunta scurried away like a rat without a backward glance. Ardres, though, had enough of a shred of honor to shrug at his (former) boss before he left.
"Sorry, boss," he said, not meaning half of that statement. "Never said anythin' about dealin' wiv' a mage."
"You fucking cowards!"
Well, that was just stating the obvious. From one perspective, anyway. Kasoria gave a half-smile of victory as the last of Kev The Butcher's band deserted him, leaving the bandit lord alone in his ragged underground hall. Surrounded by discarded weapons and food, trinkets and plunder, a stove of bubbling stew forgotten and boiling over in one corner. His ox-like mouth worked for a few moments in shock, and then Kasoria stepped back into his vision. With a sigh, the bandit tossed his crossbow down, and drew his ax instead.
"Well," he said, hefting his weapon and smiling at his enemy. "Here we are."
