Fantasy RPG Forum - Standing Trials

He was no stranger to violence, and saying such was the most polite and outrageous of understatements. Time and time again he'd felt bones break and blood splatter. With his fists, his feet, his knees and elbows. With blunt objects and broken bottles. With blades, and with them came that final step in violence: killing.

He was no stranger to that, either. He was born into the man he was after an orgy of it, a mad, hazy night of bloodletting that he still could not properly recollect. As if the sheer quantity and potency of the rage and brutality he'd unleashed was too much for his sober mind. But yes... he knew what it was to kill. And he had done so afterwards. Sometimes in the accomplishment of his duties, if one could apply such a solid word to so murky and morally ambiguous a career.

A handful of times... there had been no passion. No emotion. No feeling. A life was ended with the same clinical dispassion as an exterminator would dump boiling lye on an anthill. He had that cold, black iron in him to murder, not just kill, and he had made peace with that fact.

Kasoria was no stranger to these things. But he had not known battle. Afterwards, he would doubt a veteran like Elbert would call it that. But to him, a city boy unused to grass and dirt under his, it was more than another nameless skirmish between glorified watchmen and desperate renegades.

To him, it was straight from the tomes and tales-

"DIE, YA CUNT!"

-for the first three trills.

His training was what saved him, when an ax came careening for his neck, swinging out from the side with a whoosh and an animal roar from the man holding it. His arm snapped up, gladius gripped tight and-

CLANG

-the impact nearly knocked him off his feet. Sent him staggering to the side and he seemed to dance, glide, tippy-tap over the grass like a drunk with delusions of grace, and all the while the screaming man was gearing up for another swing-

-ax raised high-

-leaving his body exposed-

Now!

The pain didn't matter. Not the shock and trembling in his arm, from fingers to shoulder. Just this trill, maybe a fraction more, that he had to make his move. The ax rose, bandit ready to bring it hammering down again and Kasoria-

-backhanded low, ripping a red line across the man's stomach, scream turning into a howl and yet the hammer was still coming down. Madness or drink or some other chemical concoction was keeping him going. That or the same, sheer, toxic and intoxicating rush Kasoria could feel flooding his veins now. Enough to numb his arm and crush his fear, and give the bandit the strength to ignore the ugly gash and keep swinging down-

Move!

THUNK

-only for the ax to hurtle down and into the dirt like a plow, iron head burying itself with the impact as Kasoria dodged to his side. Twin clouds of dust puffed into the air from his feet as he moved. In a blink he was at the side of the bandit, who was almost bent over, ax in the ground, stuck fast, and he yanked-

Kasoria didn't give him the chance to get his weapon free. He snapped the gladius back to his side, close, and burst forward a step as he thrust-

-double-edged straight blade crunching muscle and bone; snapping ribs, scraping screech raking Kasoria's ears but it didn't stop him. He kept pushing, teeth bared, letting that old, bloody music take hold of him.

The bandit coughed and blood dribbled from his beard-smudged lips. Kasoria gripped his weapon tighter, and jerked it back, twisted as he did, not wanting the bandit's body to trap his weapon... and wanting to leave a nice, gaping wound as he got his weapon back. There was a sound like some hideous plug of waste yanked from a stopped pipe, and when the gladius was freed again-

Then came the blood. Spurts and streams of it. The bandit went down to his knees, still clutching his ax, but all thoughts of using it were gone. Instead his eyes were glazed, glassy, breath coming through in starts and... Kasoria could swear he heard it bubbling through the hole he'd just made. The big man heaved his shoulders, as if trying to rise one more time-

SHHKK

The gladius snapped out one more time. A short, clinical slash, aimed just below where Kasoria estimated the man's throat would be. A thick layer of matted hair was chopped away, and replacing it was a torrent of crimson. The bandit's eyes rolled back in his head and the rest of him followed suit, toppling back with blood soaking his torso from two mortal wounds.

Kasoria never got the time to celebrate. No sooner had one fallen, than another had taken his place. The woman, with her bouncing scalps and twin blades, throwing herself at him like some shadow-daemon from the dark lands in the South. Swinging her daggers at him like she didn't know they weren't designed for that, but they were two to his one and Kasoria was on the defense again-

-right until a lucky swipe snagged his thigh, making him stagger, yelp, go down-

She grinned. Sensed weakness, her victory birthed thanks to it. Then she saw his eyes and wasn't so sure.

"Shi-"

As last words went, it wasn't much. Or even, technically, a word. But Kasoria wasn't going to give the nameless bitch any chances for a second try.

He slashed wildly at her torso, driving her back, knowing he didn't need to connect, just buy some time. She staggered and hopped and as she did, Kasoria rose... and saw the scene unfolding around him.

Hard, ruthless men, most of them with blood soaked into the dirt of this caravan route from arcs before, were clashing with men who were equally ruthless... but not as skilled. The bandits were hacking and hammering with abandon and strength, but nothing like form, or training. They'd relied on surprise with their archers, but that hadn't been enough. Now they were throwing numbers and ferocity at men who'd had training in the army, or the Black Guard, or the underground of Etzos...

Around the young sellsword, men were being butchered. Most of them his enemies. This woman would be no different.

You have to do it first, boy.

Kasoria snarled and continued his attack, letting the pumping, aching pain from his thigh power him forwards, like wind in his sails. He roared as he slashed at her, forward and backhand, high and low, sometimes clashing with her own blades, sometimes missing, until finally she remembered she had two of them-

-lunging out at him from the left as he blocked a slash to his right-

-Kasoria's forearm swinging down from above and the side to knock it away at her wrist, Ki'Enaq training as well-remembered as anything he'd learned with his sword. The woman over-extended, staggering forwards-

Now!

With a snarl Kasoria lashed out with his right foot at the off-balance renegade. Snapping a short, vicious kick into her kneecap and felling her, putting her down on the ground just like she had him. She slashed up, wild, trapped look in her eyes. Fear. He knew what that could do. Made you sloppy. Lent you strength, lent you speed, but skill... it dulled it, smothered it. She slashed up and he swayed away from her, blade arcing in front of his face-

-as his gladius came slashing upward at the outstretched limb-

The scream was hideous. The crunch of bone and string of spurting blood less so. He was used to that. But pain, fresh and pure and disbelieving... that touched another far more than base, visceral disgust. Kasoria's blade cut through her hand at the wrist, and she was down to one hand. The bandit woman stared at the stumbp, forgetting about her other hand, her other weapon, forgetting the fight-

Mistake. Fight ain't over until you're dead.

Her mouth formed a word. She may have spoken it, in the merest whisper, as she looked up into her killer. But Kasoria did not hear it, and all she saw of him was a wide-eyed and snarling figure slashing down at her with a backhanded blow-

CRUNCH

-that smashed through her clavicle like it was a chicken leg, powering down and down and he felt rib bones shatter until there was a hard, incongruous thunk of metal against... her breastbone. Both fighters were frozen for a moment... and the woman looked down. At the sword that had cleaved through her shoulder and into the middle of her torso. She trembled and twitched and tried to speak. She looked up again and-

-Kasoria's knuckles flying towards her face were the last thing she ever saw.

He felt her nose broke under the impact and tightened his grip as she fell back into the dirt. He knew how dead weight and bone and muscle could grip a blade and drag it from his hand. So he ground his teeth and yanked it free before her collapsing carcass could snatch it from his hand. She fell back to join the Ax Man and he heard-

"You FUCKER!"

-a familiar, and pained voice. Kasoria's head snapped around and saw Elbert on his back, hand pressed to a bloody shoulder. A bandit dressed in torn breeches and nothing else save ink etched into his skin was towering over the man. Flourishing a bastard sword getting ready to finish his enemy-

Kasoria didn't hesitate, but nor did he do something stupid like cry out, either an insult or challenge. Why give a mortal foe any chance to finish you, after all? No, it was far easier to run the short distance across the turmoil, gladius already pulled back as he went, bastard sword rising as his own seemed to, and just as it reached its apex and was ready to come hurtling down like the wrath of forgotten gods-

-Elbert's jaw dropped as he saw the kid sweep low and from behind, gladius hacking into the leg of the cunt who'd stuck that fucking sword damn near through his shoulder. The man howled as the gladius bit clean into bone, then his tottering weight finished the job and the useless limb cracked in half at mid-shin. The bandit went down to one knee but was already retaliating, elbow flying around and-

CRACK

The boy wasn't going to be lucky forever. The bandit may have been crippled and likely doomed, out there in the bad lands without any healer around, but he was still quick enough to slam a back elbow into the kid's face. His nose broke and Kasoria (that was his name, right?) went flying back, barely keeping a hold of his sword. Growling, grunting, spitting foam like a rabid cur, the one-legged man lurched around, bastard sword his new crutch.

Kasoria saw him through waves of shadow and red, reeking ruin. Saw the sword start to rise and knew he needed to move. But his eyes wouldn't clear, and his hands were suddenly heavy, not his own, not attached and his mind screamed but he could not he was so tired and this was it and he didn't-

Another shadow flew into the first. The two dark shapes merged for a moment. Joined together and he could hear coughing and grinding and wet, sliding sounds, as if across a noisy room. Then the shadows split again... when one fell to the ground... and the other (the first? he could not tell) was leaning over him.

"Now we're even, boy," Elbert said, and Kasoria could see that mine-shaft-worn face leering over him as the man helped him back up. "And you still owe me for savin' you earlier."

Kasoria was about to spit out something pithy when he felt the trembling. A rolling, shuddering series of impacts through the ground, too fast and yet distinct to be anything from the movement of rocks and vast plates. Then he heard the cries from further down the road, at the edge of the woods. Looked up, across the panorama of clashing figures... and saw the riders pounding hard across the ground. Into the fray with swords and lances and axes and bows and all mounted on a few dozen thousand pounds of fast-moving horse flesh.

"Well, fuck me," Elbert said, panting and spitting in the same movement. "S'the fuckin' cavalry."