Solo Spark of Life

[Belugnir]

Woods North of Lake Ravok, Halfway to the Northern Outpost, Evening of the 38th of Fall:


"My, to what do I owe the honor?", Ein stared down the seven figures who stood ahead of him on the road, obscuring the path ahead. The lot was armed to the teeth, and though he did not know their exact gripe with him, Ein could only guess. He had hardly been making friends among the shady figures of Ravok.

A single man stepped forward, as if to have words. And Ein was quick to snort off in laughter as he'd recognized a bald head, a ginger beard, and half of a missing ear.

"Rastmo? Fancy meetin' you here."

"I could say the same, lad.", came the reply in an awfully self assured tone.

Ein turned for a moment, only to slap the side of his pony, sending the creature back down the road they arrived through, leaving himself with naught but his cloak, armor and weapons, knowing full well where this will lead.

"So, old man, why the welcoming party? You could have put a bolt in me head from the bushes like the chicken shyke you are and been done with it."

Rastmo laughed a bitter-sweet laugh. "I suppose I could have. Yet that would be rather dull, don't you think? I'm an old fellow after all, it ought to bring me some closure, chatting with young bastards who'll race to the grave ahead of me... especially ones who've caused as much trouble as you."

"I'd sooner say the black 'uns and their endless nonsense and chatter has gotten to ye hollow skull... Why are you here, though? I figured you'd be wheezing on your last breaths with some poor lass' lips about your prick by now. Couldn't be you've come up all the way from Sunberth just to poach poor ol' me down."

''Why, no, in fact. See, I am still very much in business. And the gangs back home, see, are looking to dip their fingers into a bit of Ravok honey. Slave trade ought to expand eventually, so they send an old and seasoned slaver and member to see the job through... And I would have been if whatever infernal luck you had on your side didn't see you through killin' half a dozen of my lads across the last couple months... But that luck looks mighty dry to me now.'', the man sported a wicked grin, pausing a moment.''Besides, little Ein, as I am sure you know and remember, I much prefer boys.''

The only reply that came to this was Ein hurling a pair of his throwing knives at the bald whoreson and bolting off the path, as much as he'd wanted to run up and strangle the old slaver. He heard the sharp hiss and dull thud of crossbow bolts flying by and burying themselves into tree trunks in his wake. Meanwhile Rastmo, unscathed thanks both to Ein's shoddy dexterity and his own reflex, yelled after the fleeing fellow, with laughter in his voice.

''Struck a nerve, did I, lad?''


WC:514

[Belugnir]

Fleeing through the forests, Ein could barely muster the sense or opportunity to look behind himself for a glimpse of the whoresons who were on his trail... then yet another faint echo of Rastmo's rejoicing croaks caught up to him.

"Twenty more pieces to the fellow who catches our rat-lad alive."

Not five feet past hearing the words, Ein was set upon by a man bursting out of the shrubbery ahead. The blade of a long knife came plunging for his belly, yet all it accomplished was chipping itself upon Einar's coat of plates and bouncing off, allowing for a momentary opening in which Ein responded by delivering the full momentum of his flight unto his attacker with one heartlessly forceful strike of an elbow to their chest.
Though he wore leathern protection himself, the assassin was still sent tumbling backwards, with breath forced out of him. Ein would have quickly leveled his main weapon and lunged forward, seeking to stake the whoreson with the pike of his poleaxe, yet his rushed stab was redirected by the knife his now panicking foe still held in hand... And so the young mercenary brought both his hands low on his weapon's shaft, as its main end flew aside, pulling the poleaxe back with wild abandon, seeking to fling the hammer end of his weapon back at his enemy with as much strength as he could muster. And though his footwork and execution left a great deal to be desired, setting him to stumble after the momentum of his strike was deliveref, his assassin was still worse off, unable to respond properly, and was sent falling limpy off his feet with his skull bashed halfway into itself... Yet this man's life bought the rest of his band enough time to catch sight of the mercenary, and with his back turned at that.

Ein felt his upper body propelled forth by the force of two crossbow bolts, one that crammed itself into the iron banded paddling that were the shoulder guards upon his right arm, and the other which struck him square in the back, embedding itself in his wolf-skin mantle and knocking both a solid bent plate out of his armor and the breath out of his bosom.

Feeling as though an iron ring had clutched all the insides of his chest together, salivating with a breathless grunt through his instant of helplessnes, Ein turned, mindlessly loosening another throwing knife from his belt and hurlong it blindly to where he suspected his attackers approached from. And though all the weapon struck was a thin branch, it did fly narrowly by an arbalist's head, halting the momentum of his pursuers for but a moment. The flung knife and the twitching body of their comrade with his head caved in that now came into their sight served to remind the hunters that their pray wasn't a sodding doe, and to remind them that he had offed an odd four or five of their associates across the recent months. And in their breath of hesitation, Ein managed to slip away, putting another ten or so feet and the broad trunk of an old oak between himself and the hunters. Then he collapsed on his arse, back coming just shy of leaning against the tree.

WC:548

[Belugnir]

Alive huh? That's mighty rich.

Ein barely managed to reach around, grab, snap and pull out the bolt that had embedded itself into his shoulder guard and whose tip had been scraping bloody lines against his skin. He still couldn't rightly gulp down as much air as he'd wished. And even if he did, fleeing like a blind runt through the forest was a sure fire way to get himself killed.

I'll be damned if the ginger twat didn't yell out that nonsense about takin' me alive just to throw me off even more...

He'd learned in a swift instant that Rastmo apparently had a fair lot more than six men at his beck and call, and he couldn't afford to run into any more of them, not as clumsily as he did. He also learned, however, that the buggers meant to off him were, to a degree, at least, wary of their prey. Ein had about enough sense to figure the crossbow happy whoresons were circling about what little cover they saw him stumble behind... yet he also couldn't figure for the literal life of his what he was supposed to cockin' do. Running was the obvious, sane choice. Run petching where?

Five steps in either direction and I'm still lost in arse-prick nowhere...

Grinding his teeth on the way up from his seat, Ein mustered the strength to push through his paining chest and bolt for the cover of yet another tree, a slight distance away, before cowering down from where he hazarded the line of fire from his pursuers would be. Then he would have done the same once again, bolting from his second cover to the third. This time a bolt whisked him by just as he'd dug in behind a tree. Still he remained ghasping for air, feeling as though on the verge of suffocating.

Furiously clawing at his back, Ein yanked out the bolt which previously knocked the air out of his lungs and the plates from his armor, and hurled the daft thing to the side. The length of his back was cold with sweat, and yet set upon by burning pain as if he were laying on a blanket of searing coals. It was impossibly annoying, and helped the indifferent cruelty of his situation none.

Grasping at straws to haul himself out of this bottomless shyke pit, Ein began to feel for the backbone of his being. The one that hadn't nearly been pierced by a cocking crossbow bolt. Like some nauncy mystic, he clasped his hands about his poleaxe's shaft and leaned it upon his forehead, as if the gesture would have helped his hasty attempt to focus. Guiding Djed to begin creeping and pooling into his bosom, Ein hoped to somehow loosen his cramped lungs, draw upon bloody air proper again, and bolt off, clunky as he could move, through the forest.


WC:482

[Belugnir]

Quickly did the beat of his heart expand from echoing in his ears to feeling as if he could hear it, feel it, pounding in the very earth about him. Instead of bringing relief, what little djed he could muster stimulated what rested within his chest to an extent where he felt as if all his insides were about to burst, and Ein keeled over in his seat, clawing at his breastplate. His heart was heavy lead, and his lungs blackened iron, breath became a memory, and for an instant he could no longer feel pain, yet he managed to retain just enough sense and pull away the flow of flux with which he'd nearly bursted his own chest open, sloppily scattering the djed throughout the joints of his body in small fragments, refusing to let go. Out of sheer spite. Not a thing was going his way.

And then he felt his head jolt to the side. Something struck the side of his face. And after a moment of stillness and disbelief, he felt as if the heat of a torch had been pressed to his cheek... only worse, sharper. An urge overcame him to scream out, so vast and impossible, that it collapsed upon itself. He felt his tongue. Detached. He felt impossible, piercing pain, pounding unholy murder from his raptured cheeks. He felt his teeth grit around hard wood.

He turned his head, eyes wide agape in horror and fury, in a bout of madness, just barely holding on to the idea that his eyes fell upon the filthy son of a whore who'd just lodged a crossbow bolt through his mouth sideways. His maimed mouth flew open, mute, with a cold, shallow noise creeping its way out.

Breath and blood flew down his throat to drown him and let him hold onto life with clawing fingers. The trance that took him was beyond frustration, beyond pain and anger. It was pure, boundless, empty hysteria. And he became numb with it.

WC:388

[Belugnir]

The djed still held together by what sanity there was within him was expunged in an instant, returning to its neutral state, yet not before granting him that ounce of strength he needed to will his body up.

Then he became an avalanche.

An avalanche moving, nay, charging upward, across the minor slope that separated him from the man whose aim had been half a foot off from taking his life. Einar's mind was in stasis, feeling the legs and arms that belonged to it move as if they were not his own, removed from pain in a numb sensation, as if he were a bystander within his own body, watching from a window while the home he resided in held onto dear form upon a crumbling landslide, holding on to dear form.

His mind was in stasis. Yet his body knew that the next bolt will be the one that kills it. And it moved, maddeningly, against sense and wit that told it to run and hide, it moved to sever the string that would loosen that final bolt.

It came back to him, self awareness, just as he'd made it to the figure that fidgeted nervously, in the midst of not being able to reload their crossbow quickly enough to fire anew before Ein had made it to them.

It came back to him, all the searing pain that shot from the base of his back, through his nearly bursted chest, and into his mouth where blood bitterly pooled from his raptured cheeks and the tongue that was sliced nearly apart in the crossbow bolt's wake.

It came back to him, the full, proper weight of the axehead that he swung upward as his foe, who was too late in his attempt to abandon his ranged weapon and draw his sword fully, baffled at the sight of the madman that he'd just shot in the head.

Three fingers and a broken crossbow were sent flying amidst the treetops. And, letting loose a growl that was all but human, Ein grabbed for the man's throat with one hand, leveling down the pike of his poleaxe with the other, held at the half of the weapon's shaft, seated by his own waist, lunging for the belly of his opponent who was now three fingers short of being able to draw their sword and defend themselves. The realization struck him that he would not survive this night, that if anything, he would die from creeping bloodloss. That every breath past this point, heaved heavy with blood's iron, was his last. Hate was a child's word for what he felt at the time toward this nameless whoreson who'd practically sealed his fate.

So the steel pike of Einar's weapon came ramming itself into the belly of the poor sod whom he'd come to hold by the throat with his off hand.

WC:479

[Belugnir]

And when the thrust of his polearm bounced off the iron breastplate his enemy bore, as he felt the burn of friction through the worn leather glove of his gauntlet be in vain, it only served to irk and steer him to further savagery, as did the lad's clumsy attempts at kicking him away.

Ramming his forehead into the other fellow's mouth, Ein doubled up on his grip upon the long iron shaft, and simply shoved it, horizontally, under the man's throat, pushing, driving and pinning him up against a tree, lifted off his feet. Movement was agony. The stillness of holding up a man's weight hung from their neck was agony all the more. And it was the only thing reminding him that he was alive, that he had so much as an ember's chance in a blizzard of making it out of this gods damn forest alive. And it kept him pushing. Pressing. All the way until he'd heard a horrible, and chillingly satisfying crunch from underneath where the hard wood of his weapon pressed against his foe's bare neck. And as the hunter's body came falling down limply, his head tilted at an unnatural angle, mouth foaming and eyes thrown wide apart, Einar saw fit to send him off with a slash of his polearm's axe-head across the cheek.

He did not care an ounce that the fellow he'd just killed was mayhaps the least capable opponent he'd ever faced. Not for a moment did he concern himself with the lad's beardless face, with the fact that the poor sod had likely picked up that crossbow in desperation similar to his own. All that mattered was that he'd put a bolt in Ein's head. And that he'd gotten the due courtesy.

Biting down on the wooden shaft lodged inbetween his jaws, Ein snapped off the sides of the bolt, his head jerking to the side in a horrifying manner before he reared it back to look upon the child of yesterday he'd just murdered in a fit of madness. A bloody, maimed grin sliced its way into his expression, the likes of which the faces of men were not meant to produce. Blood dripped from his chin, breathing insane chrotles through grit teeth, his entire body bent over his victim in a low stance, fidgeting as if he were being possessed. He'd turned into something less than a man. Less than a beast.

WC:406

[Belugnir]

''H-help!''

The shaken cry called him back to reality, and even with blurring sight, Ein realized that his eyes fell upon yet another lad, as young, if not younger than the one he'd just killed. The boy wore light armaments, clumsily holding out a shortsword with shaking hands. It was quite understandable why he'd be afraid. Any a sane, seasoned warrior would, after witnessing a dead man still on his feet having killed their comrade, mayhaps their friend... or their brother.

Yet what caused Einar to brake the momentary pause in which he and the lad stared each other down were the silhouettes that approached from the treeline behind the poor boy. And so the dying mercenary steered the dying embers of his blood rush hysterical strength, driving himself into a sprint, away from the arriving pursuers... who would find their hands full with two of their comrades dead and bloodied and night soon to descend fully upon the forest.

Still alive, still not finished. With every sloppy time he'd thrown one of his feet in front of the other, through the brushes, barely across the felled stones and branches, Ein felt his body aching, pulsing with cooling pain. Turning slower as he made his clumsy way, hopeless, mute and half blind through the forest. Until a grunting sprint became a jog, then a pittiful, stumbling excuse for walking... and then he began to crawl, barely seeing where he went anymore.

All the fights, all the beatings and exertion that he'd put himself through in those last few months now chased their way back to him, seeking to press him down on top of the injuries he'd suffered tonight.

Dead men hadn't the luxury nor cause of looking skyward. Nor did he see the spark of starlight that sliced a swift line across the night sky, coming downward, bursting its way through the tree tops, barely did he even hear its boom... Yet he certainly felt it. Something struck his shoulder with a force so overwhelming that it drove him into and through the ground, and as his consciousness slipped away, Ein was certain whatever had struck him had torn his arm clear off...

He was certain that he would not wake up.

WC:371

[Belugnir]

There was an odd comfort, faintly warm and welcoming, relaxing, within the dark that took hold of him... He could have lingered there for ticks, bells, days, and he wouldn't know.

Then it was burned away by pale light which left the sight of a blurry dawn in its wake.

As Einar's eyes fluttered open, he struggled to recall, to remember... anything. Yet it quickly came back to him, quicker than he cared for. The bald ginger-bearded bastard, the chase, the blood, the projectiles that nearly skewered him through the back, the crossbow bolt in his mouth... It was still there.

So it wasn't a dream... I'm not hungover from cockin' wine...

Yet before hopeless despair and panic took him at those thoughts, Ein felt his tongue warp about the broken wooden shaft that stood lodged between his teeth... poking at the inside of his cheeks... His tongue was whole? In a moment he pushed it between his teeth and against the inside of his right cheek. There was no hole to poke it through, and so it was on the other side. In fact, he couldn't feel any pain from it either... There was only numb aching... and the rope digging into his wrists, bound about a wooden pole that scraped against his back where he sat upon the ground...

And he felt some stupid, chilling rock, lodged at the base of his back, as if it were trying to crawl up his arse...

''...am sick of repeatin' mesself you old cunt. Tha's how we found the little bastard. He laid like that in a crater with some stone fallen atop his whorin' arse. I'm tellin' ye, it was Rhysol delivered the bloody fiend to us and smited the little whoreson down. Did you even seewhat your cockin' 'rat boy' did to Gav and Todd? He deserved every ounce of it and I'll give him worse once he comes to.''

It was an unfamiliar voice, somewhere behind him that spoke, and obviously in the midst of conversation with someone else.

''You watch your tone with me, Simon. I couldn't give a limp prick's swing about some orphan boy newbloods getting their head caved in. I told them fair and square what they were gettin' into... And that runt is mine. He's been a thorn in me eye since past a bloody decade now. So if he's still drawin' breath when I'm through, then you can have a go.''

Oh this one Einar recognized. The self assured whisper of an abusive slaver who had a particular hardon for young boys. Ein's teeth creaked, gritting once again about the piece of wood within his mouth.

''Hah, fancy that, bugger is awake!'', a henchman called the two bickering old men over.

WC:459

[Belugnir]

The first courtesy Rastmo delivered to his band's catch was a nice, to the point, kick across the jaw as he approached the lad that sat tied to the pole in the middle of their encampment. Ein's head jerked to the side and he felt the inside of his cheek crack up, tearing as it was pushed against his grit teeth. Once again was he treated to the taste of his own blood... Yet that taste was all he felt. There was no pain, if a vauge ache.

''Why, fancy meeting you here.'', the old man mocked.

Yet Einar remained... indifferent, staring blankly to the side, if anything, surprised by his own indifference to the prospect of a man he despised so effortlessly and freely delivering the tip of their boot to his face... It might have just been the exhausted, groggy stupor that the captured mercenary believed himself to be in.

Though Rastmo wasn't quite pleased with this reaction. He was looking forward to an upward deathly glare from a powerless fellow, yet it never came. Instead Einar only rose an odd eyebrow at him.

''What's the matter, lad? No brazen streetwise witticism to spew out?''

Silence followed for a brief while, before Ein's mouth finally parted to speak, albeit mumbling halfway incoherently thanks to the wooden shaft that still rested sideways between his teeth.

''Yow's just as huglieh as eveh.'', the cheeky grin with which Ein's words were delivered was indeed the most inexcusably brazen thing that could be written upon a man's face.

What else was he supposed to do? Frankly he had no idea how he was still alive. Much less idea how he'd gotten here. But he figured he wouldn't be making it out of this encampment Rastmo and his fellows had set up in the woods, semingly for the sole of purpose of hunting him down... wherever it was. All that was in Einar's power at this point was to deny the old ginger twat as much joy as he could in what was to come. Already had he made peace with the fact. He would suffer, he would mock, he would endure, and then he would die... oddly familiar it felt.

WC:368

[Belugnir]

A dagger blade being embedded in his thigh did not change Einar's mind half as much as the retort from Rastmo that came afterward.

"Why, I recall you looking better, my boy. Two years ago... especially way back when... How long has it been? Thirteen years now?", the old slaver made a show of licking his terth. "My word, how young you were then."

Rastmo leaned into the lad's face to slide a bloodied blade over his cheek, peeling off both skin and facial hair. Barely did Einar feel the cold steel or his own heating blood as it was let loose. And the fading ache hardly aggravated him as much as the breath with which Rastmo kept talking to flaunt about his depravity.

"Yes... so young. Beardless you were... a ripening boy, feisty... sweet as honey."

As Rastmo leaned in on the bound man who grew out of the little slave boy that managed to bite his ear off and cause him untold trouble over a decade ago, the three lackeys he had in the vicinity began to rise a brow at their employer's behavior. The old ginger-beard was normally menacing, true, but this were a menace of different sort, and he was not overly talkative, certainly not in such an... uncanny manner.

The old slaver tilted his head, his tone turning to a mockery of twisted parental love, as he reached he removed his knife and moved his free hand to pinch at Einar's cheek.

''And look at you now.''

Rope, skin and lumps of flesh came a flying. With every word that left the old slaver's mouth something inhuman stirred deep within Einar. And now, it finally exploded and came forth. Aye, I was a boy back then.

Having torn free of his binds at the cost of flesh and sinew, Ein's arms came together,
elbows overlapping to clutch the old slaver's head in a choke. I was weak.

The lackeys that now sped toward them seemed to move as though under an ocean of lead that weighed them down. I was afraid.

Rastmo's panicked attempt to push away, and even the clumsy, sideways stabs he delivered to the side of Ein's belly in an attempt to set himself free all seemed... petty. Insignificant. Ein felt the wounds inflicted on him, yet there was no pain, no fear, no restraint. And when wrath alone proved not to be enough, it became a catalyst for reckless funneling of djed, and even through his painless trance, Ein felt the bones in his arms begin to shake. Sight began to blur and even as he felt the boot of one of the slaver's lackeys set his head jolting to the side, Einar didn't care, clutching harder on the old man's neck with strength that went beyond hysterical.

But look at me now.

There was a snapping, cracking sound of bone giving way, and Ein felt Rastmo's body grow limp in his murderous embrace.

WC: 493