Urist crept out of the river cave. The steel floodgates that led to the hallway were lowered, as they always were. She peered out to her left and then her right. No dwarves. She had figured there wouldn't be any rebels with sacks bearded enough to live down here below the flooded peasant level.
She walked slowly to the main stairwell, her ears scanning the night for sounds. All she could hear was faint drippings coming from the flooded peasants quarters and falling into puddles along this level. She crept up the stairwell. The sealed floodgates of the peasant level made her smile. She knew that thirty someodd dwarves lay in there, or rather, piles of bones there were once thirty someodd dwarves. Atis Athelkuds dead body lay in there as well. There was no proper burial for her or for most of her sons and daughters that were in there with her.
Urist poked her head to the top of the ramp. Deadly quiet. Nothing was moving.
She made her way to the entrance of the fortress. The bridge was up and the gate was sealed obviously. She walked to the main corridor where it opened up onto the great vomitous courtyard. She could hear the marksdwarves above her along the walls. She recognized the voices of Lord Lego and Lord Labs. She seethed with rage as she heard them laughing and joking. Well, this route out of the fortress was blocked. And she wasnt going to charge the barracks tower with the marksdwarves firing from above and behind her.
No...the only option now was to kill the dwarves in the old hospital, then rush back to the water tunnels and to freedom.
She walked back down the hallway and stood in front of the oaken door. She tightened her grip on her axe, took a deep breath, then kicked in the door.
HACK!!!
SPLATTER!!!She cleaved the first dwarf she saw, which was a miller lying to the right of the door. A loud scream went out. The room immediately filled with life....and terror. Urist swung the blade again, severely wounding a champion in full plate.
Huh? she thought to herself. What was a champion doing in the hospital sleeping in full plate? It was then that she noticed Reg Craftgranite, the Eribite Heir shrieking in horror as Urist swung the axe yet again, knocking a recruit backwards and to the floor. Urist pushed a dwarf aside then charged towards Reg.
A Champion (ironically also named Reg) leapt from his bed and tried to stop Urist. All he managed to do was slow her down. She beat him over the head with th butt of her axe, knocking the dwarf unconscious. Then she lifted the blade high over the Eribite Heir. He screamed as he knew he was about to die, and was too crippled to even move.
As the axe blade came down, some sad sack of a peasant leapt on top of his mayor, taking the fatal blow and leaving a corpse in the way of the next strike.
It was an impressive sacrifice, and in the moment of awe one of the wounded champions managed to jump on Urists back and tackle her to the ground. She lost hold of her axe. Not good.
She kicked and contorted, but this dwarf was quite a wrestler. She grappled with him as the unconscious Champion axedwarf Reg was getting up and shaking off his stupor. Urist at last freed herself, just in time to see Reg coming at her with his axe. She was defenseless!
She leapt backwards and out of the room. Off to her right the marksdwarves were just turning the corner down the main corridor, responding to the disturbance and shouts for help coming from the hospital.
Urist took off the other way, and darting down the stairwell. She leapt down each level of stairs until she was on the old nobles level. She could hear the clanging metal of the dwarves chain and plate mail as they ran down the stairs after her. She ran as fast as she could to the river, gulped as much air as her lungs could hold, then dove into the placid water.
She had only managed to kill two peasants and wound three military dwarves, but she had almost killed their leader. The rebels were left reeling in shock and awe.
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Topic: Blockedlance - No More Stops Until Ragnarok! (Read 433717 times)