Flashback By The Edge Of A Blade [Finished]

[Sewati]

The heat was bearing down upon them, suffocating, smothering, unrelenting. Sewati felt the beads of sweat as they dripped from his brow and trickled down his cheeks. He could even feel the hot sand through the thick skin padding the bottom of his feet. The slight movements of the men that were in front of him were like faint breaths of air against his fingertips. Each man wore a ragged coat of drab colours, although it looked like the faded colours had once been bright. This caused Sewati to already make the assumption they were Benshira. He was unfamiliar with their race, but he did know it was unusual to see them camping this close to Ahnatep. Their camp held a welcoming shade in the sanctuary of their tents, but they made no move to offer such a hospitality. Instead they all stood under the burning Eyktol sun. Sewati already felt uncomfortable in the presence of these strangers, not to mention he could also feel the heat fraying at his temper. ‘Greetings, are you here to barter for iron tools?’ The trader asked in the common tongue, standing in front of two guards. Sewati only understood a few words, his heavy brow furrowing in to a scowl as he tried to understand, but from what he could tell it was a polite greeting. The trader had a dangerous, desperate look in his green eyes, despite the smile on his face. The tanned skin of his face looked tight over the bones and Sewati made a guess that this was also true of the skin covering the rest of the trader’s body. His two guards had skin that looked equally withdrawn and their eyes were twitching, almost frantically, back and forth between Sewati and his fellow tribe member, Askenimon. Both had a long knife hanging from the hips. ‘Yes friend, we have heard you would be open to trade’ Askenimon replied in the same tongue, his voice dry like the desert. He pointed over his shoulder at their pack horses, ‘We have jewelry, Mica pottery and water.’ Sewati did not concentrate on understanding the rest of the conversation, instead he watched the two guards as they flexed their fingers. Usually Askenimon spoke softly and pleasantly when he traded, but he obviously had trouble trusting the trader as much as Sewati, his voice remaining cold as he talked. The air wavered with heat haze, while the thick smell of all their perspiring bodies combined together and filled Sewati’s nose. He stared in to each guard's shifting eyes in turn, but neither one returned his stare. Even from a distance he could see the sweat glistening on their skin, although not as clearly as the piercing blue of their restless eyes. Suddenly the trader became animated. Sewati caught a few of the words as they lingered in the air, “give”, “now”, “kill”. He looked to Askenimon for some kind of confirmation, but as he stepped away from the trader with his hands raised, Sewati had the answer he needed. The two guards drew their knives and began slowly moving past the trader, eying Sewati wearily. ‘They want to take all our things.’ Askenimon told him in Tawna, his voice shaking slightly. Sewati frowned, then his lips twisted into a snarl. He could feel his already restless anger lashing back and forth inside him, but he kept it on its chain, buried under control. Instead he tried to reason with them, growling in the common language, ‘stop. Go away. You live.’ Neither man stopped, instead they continued advancing towards him. There was no point in trying to use his bow, not while they were this close. So he drew the kopis hanging from his side, this caused both men to hesitate, but only for a moment. They spread apart, trying to get on either side of Sewati. He held his long knife down at his side awkwardly, with one hand out in front of him. He moved his feet apart for balance, while trying to keep both men in sight.

[Sewati]

Sewati swung his head from one guard to the other and realised he would have strike first to overcome their advantage of numbers. He snarled and charged at the man trying to move to his left side, holding his kopis up high behind his head. He reached his target in just a few strides, swinging his kopis wildly in a downward slash at the guard's head. The man stumbled out of the way and made a desperate swing towards Sewati, who used his momentum to take his body out of reach of the knife slashing after him. Sewati had to dodge another slash towards his face, while trying to turn his body back towards the guard. Another slash, a second, a third, each one forcing Sewati to dodge and take a step as the blade got closer and closer. The fourth attack was a lunging thrust, but a swift side step took Sewati out of its path, his hand snaking forward and grabbing the guard's wrist. Using his strength, Sewati pinned the man in place by his wrist and thrust the point of his knife in to the guard's abdomen. They both seemed to be frozen in place as the man's wild look turned to shock, matched by a moment of surprise for Sewati. He could feel the guard go weak in his hand, so he let him fall to the floor, causing a cloud of dust as his body hit the sand. Their engagement had only last a couple of seconds, but Sewati's surprise was short lived as the second guard had already made up the ground. A furious thrust drove Sewati to step back on to his heels, followed by a swipe through the air that caused an angry welt of blood to appear on his forearm. The sharp pain caused him to spin away, narrowly avoiding a slash to his face, but the guard brought his fist back across in a back handed blow that caught Sewati on the temple. The pain in his head caused a sudden explosion of rage in Sewati, and his own backhanded slash caught the second guard across his chest, tearing through his ragged coat. But there was no time to react as Sewati's frenzy brought his arm down in a violent slash that sliced through shoulder bone and bit into lung. Sewati's heavy handed grip caused the Kopis to be wrenched from his grasp as the second guard dropped to his knees, and then fell face down in to the welcoming sand. The burning desert was ready to quench its thirst on the coming flood of blood as Sewati pried his weapon from the man's body, pulling it out violently. Askenimon and the trader were in a tussle of their own, wrestling over a knife in the trader's hand. Sewati stormed toward them, his face darkened by the cloud of his anger. As Askenimon fell back on to the sand, the trader smirked, but out the corner of his eye he saw Sewati heading towards him and raised his hands as he dropped the knife. But Sewati's mind was under the reign of rage. Instead he grabbed the Benshira by the throat and stabbed him with a vehement thrust of his knife. This was followed by another thrust, and another, and another. Even when the trader went limp and slipped from Sewati's grasp, he just fell to his knees and slashed again and again at the body, yelling unintelligible obscenities. Then he heard a voice, 'Sewati! Sewati stop!' He was not sure how long the voice had been yelling at him for, but it made him stop. He only then realised that his eyes were filled with tears. 'He's dead, you can stop now,' the voice was slightly calmer now. Sewati got to his feet and looked down in a daze at the blood dripping from his knife and hand.

[Sewati]

It was Askenimon who had spoken to him, Sewati turned to look at his clan member with a confused and slightly unfocused gaze. Askenimon's eyes were wide open and when Sewati dropped his blade and began walking towards him, he flinched slightly. Upon reaching his fellow Chaktawe, Sewati held out a blood stained hand to him. After a short hesitation, Askenimon used it to pull himself upright, giving Sewati a gentle pat on a large arm with his other hand. 'Its ok friend, you did what you had to do,' Askenimon said with a nervous smile. Askenimon then edged his way around Sewati and made his way over to the trader. The body was a mass of cuts, blood and loose flaps of skin hanging from bone. Sewati slowly turned, keeping his eyes fixed to the sand, not really seeing anything. The other Chaktawe picked up the bloody Kopis from the sand and wiped the blade on one of the Trader's legs. He made his way back to Sewati and took hold of one of his wrists, placing the hilt of the kopis in Sewati's hand. 'Thats a sharp blade you have there, friend. Better put it away.' Sewati did as he was told and put the weapon back in its scabbard at his side. 'We should head back, the tribe isn't far and your arm needs to be looked at.' Sewati started to follow Askenimon as he lead him away, but then stopped and finally showed some focus. 'Wait. They owed us their lives for trying to take ours, but their lack of hospitality means they owe us what we came for.' He pulled away from Askenimon and turned back towards their camp. That is when he saw the first guard he had attacked. The man was crawling across the hot sands, clutching at his stomach with one hand. Sewati knew he would not make it far across the desert in summer, even this close to one of oasis controlled by the Eypharians. He would just endure one agony after another until the Burning Lands embraced him with death. So Sewati made his way over to their horses. They were spooked and nervous, whinnying away at the smell of blood on Sewati, but they had not bolted. Any horse tamed by the Chaktawe learnt from an early age not to bolt at the first sign of danger in his volatile land. Sewati retrieved his hunting knife from his pack and slowly made his way over to the still living guard. Every animal had a sweet spot that gave them a quick death, men were no different as Sewati had seen once before. He pinned the Benshira with a knee in the back, grabbing the hair on his head and making him whimper. 'These sands claim us all in the end,' Sewati's voice was deep and quiet as he spoke. He then thrust the knife in to point where the guard's skull met his neck. He spasmed once and then went still. Sewati's hand was shaking, but he did not stop. Instead he got up and walked over to the nearby camp and made his way inside of one of the tents, wiping the tears and sweat from his eyes. Askenimon watched Sewati without moving, listening to the sounds of rummaging coming from the tent as he rubbed one of his arms nervously. A few moments later Sewati came out with a pack that rattled with a metallic sound. He made his way past Askenimon without saying a word and loaded one of the horses with the pack before mounting his own horse. He then sat waiting for Askenimon, doing his best not to think. Not to think about murder, or death. Or how he had ended lives. Ended hopes. Ended dreams. All by the edge of a blade.

[Sewati]

Askenimon joined him on horseback and they left the scene of furious death behind them. They rode in silence, Sewati's eyes fixed on the sands rather than the horizon as they would usually be. 'You can't hide from this,' he heard a woman's voice say. 'Bury your pain and it will eat at you like a disease. Confront your pain and you will overcome it. Become stronger.' Sewati had never been so relieved to feel the soft fur of Shidj around his neck, or the flick of one her long ears against his jaw. But he could hear the disappointment in his spirit guardian's voice and that threatened a flood of grief. But the sensation of her nose as it nuzzled in to his neck calmed him, helped him grapple for the composure fleeting from his grasp. He sought the words for a reply, but his courage left him and he stayed mute to her guidance. Shidj sighed, 'the bear that causes fear and sleeps alone will be set upon by rabid dogs.' She had said that to him before, when ever he lost control. He understood the warning, but he felt helpless to do anything about it. No matter how hard he tried there was always something that pushed his rage over the edge. 'I'm sorry,' he finally managed to say, almost at a whisper. 'Sorry? Not sorry to me. No harm to me.' She then showed him an image of the dead trader's body on the desert not far to his right, surrounded by starved children who were wailing. Then they stopped wailing and started growling, their teeth growing sharp, their finger nails vicious and they turned on Sewati, their eyes filled with anger. He became overwhelmed by panic, but Shidj stopped the illusion before they got close. 'I love my bear. But I can't save my bear from his own anger, only he can do that.' He felt her rough tongue lick against his cheek and then she was gone. Her absence left him distraught and he looked over his shoulder to where the illusion had been. He steeled himself and turned to Askenimon. 'Do you think I should have let them take our goods?' He asked quietly. Askenimon looked surprised for a moment, but then replied, 'the desert is a dangerous place, we can't allow others to push us around or we'll become weak.' Sewati turned his gaze back to the desert sands as he thought to himself for a moment. He was not close with Askenimon, but he had always been friendly to Sewati when the rest of the tribe had not. 'But they were desperate. Wouldn't we do the same? Would we deserve to die?' Askenimon gave a smile before replying, 'we can't know what we would do and we can't know they wouldn't have killed us after stealing from us. Would you have been able to protect us after they had killed us?' 'And the trader? After he dropped the knife?' Sewti said almost at a whisper. Askenimon became quiet, but soon replied once more, 'we all do things we regret. Some mistakes are worse than others. You just need to try to make up for them. You can't stop that trader from being dead, but you can make the right choice the next time.' Sewati looked over his shoulder once more, causing Askenimon to lean towards him, 'and the bird that always looks over its shoulder will fly in to the sun.' This caused Sewati to turn back and return Askenimon's grin with a smile. Over one of his friend's shoulder, Sewati could see Shidj sitting on a sand dune. She gave a flick of her tail and then disappeared in to the heat haze. With his mind slightly steadier on a sea of turmoil, Sewati turned forward and kept his eyes fixed on the horizon.

[Caelum]

Thread Award Name: Sewati. Skills: Intimidation +1 Persuasion +1 Unarmed Combat +2 Weapon: Heavy Knife +4 Notes: I thoroughly enjoyed this thread. It was beautifully written. Please delete or edit your post with this thread link in the grade request thread if able and, as ever, don't hesitate to contact me with any questions, concerns, or cobbler.