The liason signalled a retreat for the remainder of the troops into a large, bin-filled room. Ragna, Jora and Datan pressed their backs against the wall by the storehouse doors, Ragna slamming the heavy bar down across them. Jora looked to the outpost liason.
"So what now, elf?" she snapped. The elven Datan smiled wanly.
"Well," he said, "I
thought this was the north storehouse, but it looks like we've just barred ourselves in the wrong bloody room."
"What's so great about the north storehouse?" the dwarf Datan asked.
"Secret passage through the walls," the elf shrugged. Outside, the heavy creak of metal sounded the troops bursting through the portcullis. "Fat lot of good that'll do us now."
"Check the bins for weapons or shields," Ragna ordered. "Try and get hold of anything we can use in a fight." Datan put his axe through one of the bins; a small hill of millet flushed out.
"Ah, crap. Farming supplies." He ran a hand down his face and through his beard, then readied himself by the door. Somewhere beyond it, deep screams were coming from above. So much for the marksdwarves, then. "Well," Datan grunted, "I'm not bloody well going to die here."
"You seem pretty sure of yourself," Jora pointed out, readying her sabre. Over by the bins, the elf was rummaging through bins.
"Let's just say I think my appointment with Deler's already been set. What's the bleeding elf doing?"
"Aha!" cried the elven Datan, pulling a single seed from one of the barrels. "Got it!"
"Got what?" Ragna asked, rubbing her wrists. She was starting to get a bit tired from all the killing.
"Our ticket out of here," said the liason with a grin, albeit a humourless one. "All I need to do is debase the sacred teachings and renounce any vestiges of my heritage as an elf." He snorted. "As if joining a bunch of dwarves and living underground didn't already do that." Jora tilted her head.
"Which involves what?" she asked.
"Mud," said the elf. "I need mud, and as much of it as you can get before the soldiers get in. Everyone, kick the mud off your boots into a pile!" Bewildered, the garrison dwarves began scraping mud from their boots as the elf turned to Ragna.
"Captain," he continued, "what I need from you is simple. Blood." Ragna raised a bushy eyebrow. "Goblin blood for preference, but once this gets started any blood will work. Even yours, if you get cut down. Do you have some idea what I'm going to do?" Ragna nodded slowly. Suddenly the door began to shudder with heavy banging from the other side, splinters of wood cracking from the bar.
"Steady," the captain growled. Around the room, the dwarven troops readied their spears and axes, and the elven Datan placed the seed he had found in the clump of soil. A palpable tension hung in the air as the door continued to splinter and crack.
Ragna held herself, back to the wall, sword in hand. She could feel her senses sharpening, a looseness entering her muscles as it always did just before a fight. The heavy breathing of her fellow soldiers across from her, the harsh grunting of the goblins in between the sharp cracks of the ram. The bitter tang of blood in her mouth, the polished grip of the longsword in her fingers, the subtle reverberations of the Force through her feet. Something shifted, and her arm began to move.
The door exploded open and the first goblin charged through, clutching the end of the ram with both hands and raging a terrifying war-cry even as Ragna's blade cut through his throat, reducing it to a wet gargle. Dark crimson shimmered; from the blade, from his neck, from the pool spreading in slow silence across the floor. The moment it hit the dirt, chaos erupted.
Ragna's senses exploded. Instead of the crystal clarity she always felt in a fight, everything sank into confusion. She became aware of herself swinging wildly, hacking at goblins and dwarves with an almost lunatic bloodlust. Somewhere distant from her, she could make out the forms of Jora and Datan in the haze, the blend of elgant swordplay and brutal axedwarfship holding out against the onrush of attackers. Something slashed her arm and her blade cut deep into a dwarf's collarbone, severing his beard and driving a deep gash through his windpipe. His scream seemed sharper than the others, echoing through her skull like a beating mace. She could feel herself sinking away, all senses fading except for one.
Rage. Pure, unadulterated rage. Something was tearing at her, wounding at her. Somewhere above, somewhere in the world of little things, little things were killing one another. She reached up, reached up from the dark, dreamy slumber to see the cause, to look through eyes and hear through ears and taste through lips. She found an opening and began to perceive. At first dull, unfocused, then with rapid clarity. Pain, pain here too. Cuts, gashes in the flesh.
She flicked the dead metal in the creature's hand, sending the annoyance flying across the room. The eyes lingered on the sight for a moment, on the body with the hair upon its face cloven and the flesh beneath it rent, and the ichor seeping from it. Something was wrong here. The blood was burning up, turning into crimson gas and flowing through the room, the body drying and dessicating and burning with fire, and how it hurt! How it hurt
her! Was this the cause of her pain?
She flicked the dead metal again to maintain her eyes a little longer, sending three more creatures to a similar fate. Once more their blood boiled and flowed through the air, and this time she forced the eyes to watch the path. The blood, the smoke, the living force flowed to a seed, a seed forced into growth unnatural. A thick, bulbous vine pressed against the raised and dead stone, forcing it apart, forcing a hole in the wall on the dwarf-made cavern. There, next to it, a creature stood, eyes red as the boiling blood. The source of the pain, of the unnatural growth. Tormentor. Betrayer.
She moved the figure forward, cutting with the dead metal anything in its path, moving it toward the creature that dared to do this, that dared to tear at her flesh for its gain. Something was holding her back. Many somethings. Dragging the creature down with them. She struggled with the creature, to little avail, but there were other ways. She eased herself out, moving away, moving back into slumber. First, though, she roared.
"Ragna!" Jora yelled as the horde of goblins began piling over the dwarf, frantically slashing at them with her sword, an unexplained madness in her eyes. Jora began advancing toward her, cutting at the goblins to try and get to the captain, but suddenly found her footing askew. She tumbled to her knees as a thunderous tremor surged through the earth beneath her. Grains of mortar shook loose from the ceiling, but the tremor only kept growing. Datan grabbed Jora's shoulder.
"Jora!" he shouted. "We have to get out, it's a bleeding earthquake!" He pointed to the corner of the storeroom. Dried, dessicated bodies of dwarves and goblins alike were strewn across the room, some turned to grey dust, but a vast and strangely ugly-looking green vine had spread across the room, laying its tendrils in them. The vine had forced through the mortar in the wall, breaking open a hall just wide enough for a dwarf to pass through. Draped over a bin close by, an exhausted and haggard elf showed only the faintest glimmer of life.
Jora supposed by the clothes it to be Datan, but this was the only clue. What glamour and youthful beauty the elf had possessed was gone, drained away and replaced by a wrinkled, aged figure with translucent skin and hair, bright blue veins traced clearly through his skin. Jora glanced back; she could not even see the captain any more under the press of greenskins.
"Gods damn it!" she swore, grabbing Datan's arm and running with him to the makeshift exit as the ceiling began to crumble above. She hefted the frail, almost weightless elf onto her shoulder; for all that had been sacrificed, she might as well get the damned payload. The liason opened his eyes and stared at her for a fraction of a second as they passed through the hole; the blue had been leached from his eyes, replaced with a pale pink. He shut them the moment they passed into the sun, cringing at the harsh light.
With a cacophanous roar, the inner bailey of Meadowfort collapsed. Far from a spectacular crumbling, the corner of the building appeared at first to sag, then with the slow inevitability of an avalanche began to slide to the ground. As Jora, Datan and the elf made their escape, a handful of lumps of masonry cartwheeled after them in a final parting shot by the keep. When they had reached a safe enough distance, Jora turned to look back.
Nobody crawling out of the wreckage. No survivors escaping by the skin of their teeth. Just dust, settling.
They turned and began the long trek home.
---------------
And now I'm back in England, where I do have my notes again. I've made my sentiments about holidays known elsewhere on the boards, so I shan't repeat them.
Hopefully, that means we'll be back onto a more regular update schedule again, soon. In the meantime, here's a little sketch to go with the post.
Poll
Author
Topic: Olonkulet - Bloodlines (Read 62423 times)