Intermission: Extended Silence Edition

Oh, hey, didn't see you there. Because if anyone is still there, it's likely a miracle. I noticed it has been a very long time since the last chapter went up and I thought it might be nice to let all two of you know that I haven't forgotten about this here blog and the story. I am still working on it, but let's just say that life has intruded a little bit in the past couple of months. I can't say for sure when the next chapter will be ready, but I can assure you that it is in the works.

TL;DR: I suck. I'm still writing. It'll still be a while before the next post is ready.

Part the Sixteenth: Run Like Hell (Slight Reprise)

Brass and I got while the getting was good. The majority of the Defias were still sniffing around the farmhouse and the edge of the woods where I had given them the slip. They were apparently smart enough not to go running blindly into the trees and undergrowth where they thought an assassin might be lurking.

We were able to circle around the majority of the searchers, quickly heading for where I’d tied my horse. Things were starting to look like we might be able to make a clean getaway. Brass wasn’t exactly stealthy, but he did well enough to not attract attention, which was all he needed to do. I was just able to see the stand of saplings I’d picketed my horse in when things went pear-shaped.

Apparently, the Defias are sneakier than I had given them credit for. While one group of them acted as bush-beaters, moving forward in a line and making plenty of noise while doing so, another group was moving ahead of them, sneaking around through the brush trying to catch sight of a certain assassin fleeing from the search line. Crouched low in a particularly large salal berry bush and doing a very good job of being silent, though looking in the wrong direction, I didn’t notice the Defias until I’d just about tripped over him.

His eyes got big over the trademark red bandanna the Defias wore over their faces. I’m not sure which of us was more surprised, but he was able to shake it off first, making to scramble back and turning to yell at the same time. I wasn’t far behind him in reacting, hammering a two-inch punch into his solar plexus that took the wind from him long enough to strangle his warning in his throat. He had enough presence of mind to grab at my wrists to keep from hitting him again or going for a weapon. Further, he slammed his forehead into my nose, making me reel back and stars of pain flash and pop in front of my eyes.

The last thing I could let happen was for the Defias to call out a warning to the rest of his compatriots. Good as I am, a whole camp full of men is a bit beyond my abilities. That did spawn an idea, but first I had to deal with the scout I was wrestling with.

The thing about wrestling is that it was invented by orcs and to work best with their unique physiology. That is to say, it takes advantage of their superior size and strength. Scouts and assassins, on the other hand, tend to be less on the bulky and more on the leaner end of the morphologic spectrum. As any good wrestler will tell you, the idea is to use your superior size and strength to immobilize and incapacitate a smaller, faster opponent. If both wrestlers are about the same size and neither is clearly stronger than the other, it pretty much just turns in to two men writhing around on the ground holding on to each other.

As ever, all else being equal, skill always decides the day and, unfortunately for me, the Defias scout was better than I was. I had one arm bound up behind me and both legs locked down in a scissor hold, my one free arm could flail helplessly, but that was about it. I at least was able to keep my weight shifted in such a way that he was only able to draw short, shallow breaths and unable to call out to his friends.

Unlike me.

“Any time you wanna jump in here, Brass, feel free,” I grunted. I felt, more than saw, the scout’s head snap over, looking toward where I supposed Brass was.

“Wull, ye looked laik y’were ‘avin’ such fun. Ah didnae wan’te interrupt,” I could hear the smirk in his voice.

“No, no, by all means, interrupt,” I said from clenched teeth. No sooner had I spoken than the scout started struggling more, rolling about and trying to stretch me out even taller and doing a fair job of it. He got his hand wrapped up in my hair at the back of my head and seemed to be trying to wrench my head on all manner of directions it shouldn’t go. It was about then that I heard a decidedly solid crack and all the limbs holding me immobile very suddenly went slack.

I rolled to my feet and looked at Brass and the scout. The dwarf looked rather self-satisfied, the scout was unconscious and his jaw didn’t look like it was on right.

Brass shrugged with a smile and said, “When ever’thin’ in th’ whole o’ th’ world is bigger ‘n ye, ye learn how t’ kick real ‘ard.”

“I can see that. Glad you’re on my side.”

I could hear the beaters approaching quickly; we didn’t have a whole lot of time, certainly not enough to reach the copse of trees where my horse was picketed. I sketched out my plan to Brass as quickly as I could and pointed out where my horse was. He looked at me like I was insane, which I certainly had to be to even consider what I was about to do to be a good plan, but he went along with it, hunkering down in the thick brush near the bole of a tree. Unless they were using dogs, which it didn’t sound like they were, or someone literally tripped over him, the beaters should pass right by him without noticing.

That left my part of the plan, the crazy part. I stood and rolled my shoulders, looking toward the beaters and then in the direction they were heading.

“Good luck, lad,” Brass said quietly from his hiding spot.

“You owe me my body weight in beer when this is over,” I sighed back.

I could hear his grin, “Deal.”

I moved half a dozen yards away from where Brass was hiding and took a deep breath, “He’s here! He’s here! I found him! He’s over here!” I kept hollering at the top of my lungs, even as I took off in the opposite direction. Running through dense underbrush isn’t exactly easy, in fact, it’s damn near impossible, something I was counting on to slow the Defias down and help keep me ahead of them. I bulled through about twenty feet worth of bushes before finding a game trail, which made the going much easier. There was a lot of shouting and crashing coming from behind me and gaining fast. I just had to stay enough ahead of them that they never quite caught sight of me, at least until I go to more open ground, which, if memory served, I should reach any…moment…now!

I burst from the brush into an open space with a few scattered campfires and the dilapidated remains of several wagons and tents. Fifty yards to the right, the gaping maw of an abandoned mine loomed ominously, just as ramshackle as the remains of the wagons and lean-tos.

Oh, and a couple score worgen lazing around the remains of their most recent kills.

Dropping down a short incline from the line of brush into the worgen camp, I hit the ground at a dead sprint, scattering at least one pile of smoldering embers into the fur of the worgen rapidly waking up. I kept hollering and shouting to keep the Defias coming, just about reaching the safety of the brush on the other side of the camp right about the same time the Defias burst forth, stumbling and falling into a whole mess of worgen who were rapidly growing irate at the disturbance of their post-meal nap.

Now, if you’ve never seen a worgen, allow me to explain just why this was both a crazy and brilliant plan. Your basic worgen is essentially a really big wolf. Like, really big. Like seven to eight feet tall kind of big. So you have this huge bloody wolf that stands on its hind legs and is little more than muscle, fur, claws and fangs. To make matters worse, they’re pretty smart on top of being crazy strong. My experience with them puts them right about even with a slow human. So, yeah, big, smart, strong, terrifying. And the Defias were blundering right into a great bloody pack of them.

For my part, I was nearly across the clearing, less than half a dozen strides would see me back into the brush with the triumphant howling of the worgen and the screams of the dying Defias behind me. Just a few more yards and I would be home free.

When I was kid, maybe ten or eleven years old, two of my friends and I were exploring the rooftops of the tenements near Deadman’s Alley. Even back then, you could easily traverse most of the poorer districts in the city by way of rooftops as you could on the streets below. Sometimes more easily, depending on where you were. In this particular instance, my two friends had just crossed a rather dodgy-looking plank bridge from one building to another. The board had creaked and cracked ominously as my friends had crossed, so I was a little nervous about it. Still, I had to show that I was just as brave as they were, creaking and cracking be damned. I got a short run up on the board and made it across in three great strides. We were busy congratulating ourselves when we felt the first stings. Seems there was a wasp nest on the underside of the board. Everything would have been fine had I not crossed, my friends having disturbed the nest, but not so badly as to make the wasps aggressive. No, that had been me and my great galumphing across.

This was pretty much the core of my plan today as I raced across the worgen’s clearing before the abandoned mine. I would pass by so quickly as to be ignored, but the Defias, unaware of what they were getting led into, would catch the full brunt of the worgen’s wrath. As plans go, it wasn’t bad. It almost even worked.

I was just about to clear the last step up a short incline and into the brush, a big triumphant smile on my face. That smile quickly melted away to mounting horror as I felt the iron grip of a worgen paw wrap around my ankle and got to see the ground eagerly rise up to meet me. I rolled to my back and got a good, long look at the hungry malevolence in the pale yellow eyes set above a gore-streaked muzzle.

The worgen leaned back his head and howled in triumph, a spine-chilling sound that even at a distance could loosen a lesser man’s bowels. Hearing that howl up close and personal, I was glad I have had sufficient control of my water not to embarrass myself. When he was done howling, he leveled that unblinking stare on me once more and reared back with his free paw, four-inch long claws shining in the pale light of early morning.

A lot of people in my line of work generally wear a soft, flat-soled shoe or short boot, the kind of footwear that makes it easier to sneak about. The problem with that sort of boot is that it really doesn’t hold up very well when the shit starts flying. I’ve known more thieves and assassins who got caught because they slipped or fell victim to a well-placed sharp object. Personally, I swore off those little moccasin things the first time I had to pick caltrops out of my feet. It took a little while to get used to, and a bit longer to become good at sneaking around in, but a good pair of riding boots with a solid heel are just about the best thing short of actual sabatons when you need to move quickly or fight your way out.

They also make a particularly sickening crunch when you ram the heel into the snout of an angry worgen with all your strength. I had just enough time to scramble to my feet and take two steps into the brush before I heard the sound I will forever remember as The Furious Roar. This was a sound so full of raw, molten fury, of pure, unbridled hatred and of hot, bloody anguish that there was only one reason any living thing would be making it. I risked a glance backward as I darted through the thickening undergrowth to see the biggest, blackest worgen I’d ever seen cradling the whimpering form of the worgen whose muzzle I’d shattered. In that split second, his baleful, glowing green eyes met mine and he extended a single gore-slick claw at me. I knew that look. All too well.

The momentary tableau shattered as soon as I realized he wasn’t just pointing at me, but aiming. I saw the fel energy gathering around his paw a moment before he unleashed it at me. Undergrowth withered and died as the shadowbolt streaked toward me and I swear I heard the tree I dove behind to avoid it groan in pain as the bolt impacted, carving away a gaping, rotting hole in the trunk in seconds. I didn’t wait around for the second or third or however many more shadowbolts the worgen was going to cast at me. I could hear the telltale moan of the shadowbolts streaking around me and I dove and rolled through the brush and brambles.

I was lucky in one respect. If that worgen had ever stopped casting long enough to actually give chase through the woods, I would have been well and proper fucked. There’s no way in all the Twisting Nether I would have been able to outrun a worgen in the woods, doubly so when I finally broke from the brush onto the path to the Tranquil Gardens Cemetery. Fortunately, it seemed that big black worgen wasn’t interested in giving chase today. Oh, joy.

Once I hit the path it didn’t take me long to get to the main road and, shortly after, to Darkshire. An agitated Watchman stopped me at the erstwhile gate to the village. Standing there, my clothes muddy, torn and covered in sticks and twigs and leaves and Light knows whatever else I’d picked up from the woods, and looking haggard and exhausted, I’m sure I presented the very image of respectability and decorum.

“Don’t suppose you know what’s got the worgen so riled up this morning?” the guard slowly drawled. Judging by his laconic speech and general lackadaisical attitude, I suspected he was a conscript from deep Westfall.

I glanced over my shoulder with the feigned attitude of mild surprise and fear, the latter not being hard to fake, “They’ve been like that for some time, no idea what’s set them off.”

The guard rolled his eyes and waved me through, “Uh huh. For your sake, let’s just hope they keep to their part of the woods and don’t come over here thinking that Darkshire is full of tasty people.”

Intermission: Casting Call!

Jessika the Tank from over at Pretty in Plate had this excellent idea for a post, so I'm going to take a moment from your regularly scheduled program (crap, when was my last real post again? I better get on that...) and run with this here idea, 'cause it's a good one.

Yes, Jess, I am shamelessly stealing your meme. Let's see how far this goes from my little corner of teh intarwebtubes...

The idea is thus: we know that the great Sam Raimi is going to be directing the fabled World of Warcraft movie. So, let's imagine, if we will, that the great Lord Raimi has decided that your characters would be perfect to tell the story he wants to tell. Even better, Mr. Raimi has given you first pass at casting your characters. The question, then, is simple: Who do you get to play your character(s) in the WoW movie?

Being that I'm starting the meme, my choices are...

Oded Fehr as Khol Drake. Y0u may remember him best as the mysterious desert rider from the trio of Mummy films, but he was also the asskicker Carlos Olivera in the second and third Resident Evil movies. He's the exact right height, he's got the right build and has already proven he can do the action. Give him plenty of dry, sarcastic one-liners and we're set.

Rutger Hauer as Mordock Steelfist. Mordock is, above all, an old soldier. Despite the fact that he's really only in his late 30's, he looks and acts like he's a veteran of the First War. If there's anyone who exemplifies the old veteran of innumerable battles, Rutger Hauer is that man.

Kate Nauta as Lotos. At first glance, Lotos looks like most Night Elf women: tall, slender, athletic, rounded in all the right ways and all the right places. A closer look and you can see that she's actually hard muscle and sharp lines. Kinda like Kate Nauta, the crazy killer woman from Transporter 2.

That's my cast. So, a meme isn't much of a meme unless you tag other people to participate. Since Jessika started this, I can't well tag her. What I can do, though is tag a bunch of people who I think should have something interesting to say.

So, Ratshag, Ila, Anna, Keredria, Pike and Euripedes...consider yourselves tagged. Who would you cast as your characters in the WoW movie?

Intermission: More Teasing, Pleasing Included

In the Days of Misspent Youth

The sun beat down on the field, baking the already hard-packed dust even further. A young man stood under the punishing sun, his leather hauberk and helmet only compounding the heat, sweat running freely down his face and back. He faced an older man who wore only a light leather vest and held his weapon with the practiced ease of many years of experience. The younger man swiped his gauntleted hand over his forehead in a vain attempt to mop away sweat and grit, instead only keeping the sweat from running into his eyes for a moment. The older man smirked to himself and lunged, forcing the younger man back several steps before he was able to bring his own weapon up to block.

Pressing his advantage, the older man feinted for the young man’s legs, reversing his stroke at the last second; deftly avoiding a clumsy parry to bring his weapon around in what should have been a killing blow. Fortunately for the younger man, the wooden practice sword only left a stinging welt, despite the thick leather armour he wore.

William picked himself out of the dust and proceeded to brush himself off, muttering quietly to himself.

“What’s that, lad? I didn’t quite hear you. Are you making excuses for your poor performance?” the weapons master said with a smirk. His iron-coloured hair and beard were near white in the sun of the Eastern Reaches and his face showed the colouration of a man who had spent many years under it, though his Elmordran accent marked him as being from the highlands of the Empire, far to the northwest.

“Of course not, goodsire, I’ve no desire for another drubbing,” William said, trying hard to keep the grumble from his voice. He picked up the wooden practice sword and saluted the weapons master, adding a short bow to acknowledge his loss.

“Good! That shows you can learn! Now, why did you lose?” the weapons master crossed the practice yard, tossing the cudgel onto a pile of a dozen more just like it and taking up the ladle from a keg of drinking water.

William thought for a moment before answering. Simply saying that the weapons master was better then him would only get him another long duel and a dozen more bruises to match the set he had just earned. It was an answer like that which had landed him before the weapons master’s waster to begin with. He thought about the fight, seeing every error he had made, each of which had been pointed out with a bruise where those errors had cost him.

“I was sloppy and complacent. I expected you to go easy on me, but you didn’t,” William hoped that answer would be sufficient to appease Master Cuhal.

“You’re right, lad, I didn’t and that you expected me to shows you’ve got far more to learn about fighting than strokes and stances,” Master Cuhal turned to address the rest of the young men standing in a rough circle around the practice yard, “That goes for all of you. Just because this is only training, doesn’t mean you can ever expect any quarter from your foes. Expect just as much as you would give, which is none. Is that understood?” Heads nodded eagerly, desperate to get out of the blazing furnace of the practice yard.

“Well, that’s about enough for today, then, off with you all,” he paused long enough for the bulk of the young men to start leaving, “Except you, William.”

William froze in mid-step, silently cursing his luck at having been singled out. He sighed and trudged back toward the weapons master.

“Yes, goodsire?”

Master Cuhal chuckled quietly, “You act as if someone just killed your new pup, lad. It’s nothing so bad as you might think,” he patted William on the shoulder and smiled, “You were sloppy today, lad, and that’s just not like you. You’re the best in the class; almost good enough for your first steel, yet the kind of mistakes you were making today were the sort of thing I expect from the greenest of boys. Is something wrong, lad?”

William only half-heard the weapons master’s words, fear suddenly running through him like ice-water. Something was indeed wrong, but William couldn’t speak of it. The fact that the weapons master had noticed made him wonder who else might have suspicions. Only his servant knew anything and he had been sworn to secrecy. Would Ælf have said anything? William could all but swear he would not have. They had made so sure to destroy or hide the evidence of his illness. The weapons master’s voice snapped him from his racing thoughts.

“William? Lad?”

William pushed a smile to his face, hoping his voice would be steady, “I-I’m fine, Master Cuhal. I think the heat is getting to me is all. Nothing to worry about.”

Master Cuhal didn’t look entirely convinced, but accepted the young man’s words at face value, “I’ll see if your father will go back to Caer Avondrev a little early. This heat is abominable and the roads should be sound enough by now.”

“Oh, no! That won’t be necessary, Master Cuhal, I just need a bit of rest, is all. There’s no need to mention anything to Father, really.” The mention of William’s father brought cold sweat to his brow once more. The last person that needed to know anything was his father. If he found out William was sick... Well, he just didn’t need to find out.

Master Cuhal nodded and patted William on the back, guiding him to the shade and the keg of water, “Well, get something to drink and try to stay out of the sun for a while, then, hey? I’ll go let your tutors know you’ve a touch of heat sickness and to excuse you from your lessons today. Get some rest, hm?”

William nodded and gave him a grateful smile, “Yes, Master Cuhal, thank you.” The weapons master smiled in return and walked from the yard, leaving William standing alone. He was able to wait just long enough for Master Cuhal to vanish from sight before he was brought to his knees by his guts suddenly twisting and causing him to retch and vomit violently. He felt like spears were being driven into his stomach with each retch, expelling less and less each time, but still the spasms wracked him. Even through the pain-filled haze, his only thought was, Please don’t let there be too much blood, please don’t let anyone find out I’m sick.

Intermission: In Which the Chronicler is a Filthy Cocktease

By Demons be Driven

The bricks of the chimney oozed just enough heat to warm the small room comfortably, yet to the figure huddling on the bed, the room was stiflingly hot. Sweat damped his shirt and ran freely down his face, mixing with the tears rolling slowly down his unshaven cheeks. His dark hair hung in limp clumps, fat drops of sweat running down the clumps to drip onto his already-stained shirt. A single candle burned on the small table in the corner, the stubs of three more just like it scattered around the battered holder. The man stared blankly into the flame, grey eyes rendered amber in the weak, flickering light of the candle. Only he could say what he saw there, but judging by the fear in his eyes, it wasn’t anything pleasant. Silently, his lips moved, forming words that only he could hear, each word seeming torn from him as if dragged free by a team of horses.

A faint, sibilant hiss suddenly drew his eyes to the true object of his fear, lying across the foot of the straw mat that made up bed, flashing and glinting in the light of the candle. His arms peeled away from hugging his knees and he tried to push himself back, further away from the thing, but his back was already to the wall and his limbs lacked the strength to move him more than a few inches before they gave out.

“You ssee? You ssee what happenss when you neglect me?” the voice whispered, quiet as silk drawing over flesh. The man pushed himself from the bed, tumbling to the floor with a thud, fresh bruises already beginning to form under his pale flesh.

“You are weak. I am sstrong. Sstrong for you, William Lynch.”

The man grunted with the strain of levering himself upright and heaving himself into the corner, as far from the thing on the bed as possible.

“You need my sstrength, William Lynch. You will die without it. Sslowly, wassting in thiss sstinking inn. Thiss iss not your fate.”

William’s lips moved in time with the words, the hiss coming from his own throat, through his ears heard it differently. To him, they came from what he knew was the true source of the words. On the bed, the swept-hilted rapier lay unmoving; its hilt burnished silver and graceful curves. Only William could see the truth of it, knew the truth of it. Of the monstrous thing that lived inside of it.

Inside of him.

“Yess, William Lynch, sstop thesse regretss and sself pity. You can be sstronger than thiss. Take me up. Let my sstrength be yourss again! You can be the sstrongesst of them all!”

His eyes fell closed, as heavily as if they had been made of lead. He squeezed them shut, refusing to look at that cursed thing. His hands came to his ears, refusing to listen to the honeyed words, trying to block them out. They came still, creeping into his mind without stopping first at his ears.

“You need me, William Lynch. I need you. Take me up, feel my sstrength as yourss!”

Hot tears started fresh down his cheeks, sweat running in thick rivulets down his face and back. His entire body began to shudder, though from the effort of holding himself upright or resisting the urge to reach for the sword was impossible to tell. Slowly, his fingers untwined from his lank hair, shaking as if palsied, moving almost of their own volition. Gradually, his arm stretched, trembling like a leaf in a storm, to its full length, his palm upward.

Resting there, lightly as if it were nothing more than a dream, the rapier fitted to his hand more closely than if it were a glove of the finest kidskin. In that moment, the whole of his being changed.

He stood slowly, easily, the quaking in his limbs but a faint memory. A slow smile spread across his lips, full of stated desire and dark intentions. The most striking change, however, was the faint bluish tint shining in his pale grey eyes. He lifted the sword to his lips, smiling more and gently kissed the naked blade.

“My strength,” he whispered and this time his voice was wholly his own.