Fiery Furnace

[NekoButcher]

(Closed)

The train rolled on through the cold, clickity clack, clickity clack, clickity clack. Its sound was monotonous, dull and boring. As Pounder looked out the window onto the vast expanse of snow that lay before him, he wondered if he would go to St. Denebriel’s Cathedral again when he arrived in Knife’s Edge. He had been their one time before, two years ago, when he was feeling at his lowest. He had killed, cheerfully and without mercy, and he was wondering what he was becoming. Now he knew, he was a nomad, unwelcome ever to return to Alerar.

Pounder tried not to think too much about it as he caught one of the last trains leading for Salvar. Given the news he’d heard about the brewing Civil War, he was surprised that even this train ran. There were very few passengers even now. Pounder preferred that. If a member of the Kyorl or the Mazzra recognized him, the large feline knew that things could get ugly. There were only so many exits on a train, so many places that were soft enough to jump to from a moving train, and only so many opportunities to escape.

Thus, as the train reached a screeching halt, the former butcher’s hair stood on end and he instinctively reached for his dagger. “Shit…” he thought, biting down on his lip. “Someone’s identified me…” He looked around, there weren’t too many people nearby, and he hadn’t remembered seeing anyone leave his car. “But who…”

Pounder knew he was going to need an escape plan, he just didn’t know exactly who from. In Alerar, he had been fortunate enough to meet a maniacal dark elf who had no qualms with slaughtering her own kind. Pounder doubted that he would meet another like her on a train.

Soon, the car startled to rattle. Pounder got up, but practically fell immediately after. He grabbed onto his seat and looked out the window. There were people rattling the car. “It’s not Alerar after me…” he realized. “It’s even worse!” He had no idea why there was going to be this sudden assault on the train, but he assumed that it had something to do with the rumors of the Civil War that he had been hearing about.

Immediately, Pounder sheathed his iron dagger and then made his way out into the center of the aisle. He cleared his throat and began to speak to the other passengers, many of whom were too busy panicking to even look out the window.

“It looks like we’re under attack,” he said, in slow Tradespeak so even those less familiar with the language could understand him. “I don’t know who by, or what for, but it seems someone’s after us. I suggest running, and I suggest doing it together. If we’re not careful, then we will end up dead.”

He looked around at the people in the car. None of them looked like fighters. Pounder shook his head. What he had thought was the boon of a few people around him had suddenly transformed itself into a curse.

[Karuka]

Karuka hadn't really decided on taking the train for any particular reason. Maybe she was just tired of walking, and where ever the train was going was a good enough destination. So long as it was quiet. The little red-head had had quite her fill of adventure, and was hoping for a few months of peace and quiet, just wandering around. The gentle bumps of the train as it rolled through Salvar, its plush seats and its inexpensive but good food seemed to reassure her that it was all right, for once in her short life.

Of course, all her hopes were dashed when a group of people started shaking the train. It went back and forth, at first gently, but with growing force. This had taken her day from quite good to really bad in the space of about three seconds, and she was really tired of having to take crap from random strangers everywhere she went.

The crowd sounded hostile, although she couldn't understand some of the words they used. It just sounded like a mob, but she could hear sonorous voices directing the crowd. It sounded as though a government or religious body had a reason to try and stop the train. Permanently.

As the train rocked harder, Karuka took a good pinch each of saltpeter and brimstone, putting it into a small vial and then pouring a couple of ounces of oil into it. Tucking a quickly-made wick into the side, she corked it tightly, ready to light and throw it at a moment's notice. She knew from experience in Dheathain that this was a very deadly sort of weapon.

She barely heard Pounder's instructions over the din, but he seemed to be advocating a plan of escape. It didn't seem to be a very good plan, all the stampeding would lead to confusion and make the whole mass an easy target.

Standing up, she raised her voice.

"Everyone move to the back of the train! Able-bodied fighters to the front and back, women with small children to the middle! If you have a child, keep hold of it!"

The two different people trying to take command confused the twenty or so other people in the car, and the train's violent rattling only seemed to make everyone more frightened and unwilling to do what was necessary to save their own lives, so Karuka stormed out into the aisle.

"MOVE! NOW!"

[NekoButcher]

Pounder cringed immediately when he heard the read haired girl. “Great,” he thought sarcastically. “Someone wants to be a hero…” The older cat man had not alluded the Alerarian army just to end up protecting a group of strangers he hardly knew on a train. Still, he could tell that no one was fleeing. They were all listening to the girl over him.

The cat man scowled. He was hoping to find a way to insert himself into the middle of the pack of fleeing passengers, using the others as shield for his escape. Now, that the red haired girl had destroyed that option for him, he began to consider whether her plan could work. He looked out the windows again. There was a mess of rioters, at least three times as many as there were people on the train.

“She’s probably one of those hero types,” Pounder figured. “One of those Princess Valiants’ that think the whole world is going to bow down to them just because they’re good. Fools the lot of them. The ones that survive come around.”

Since it seemed that the there would be no option but to join the forces that were collecting to fight the mob, Pounder made his way over towards the red haired girl. He thought about saying something to her, but decided not to. It was about then that all the rocking stopped. Pounder cringed. He could sense what was about to happen next.

“Grab something,” he said. “Something big.”

For his part, Pounder lay down on the seat nearest to him and hugged it. Mere seconds after he had hugged the seat, the cat man could feel that the train beginning to tip over. Luggage began to fall, causing Pounder to hold onto his seat that much tighter. He cringed as he heard the cries of fellow passengers, realizing that meant there would be fewer fighters on his side. Despite what was left of his quickly fraying conscience, Pounder hoped that if anyone was killed, it would be the women and children who would have been useless in battle.

Given how he was placed, Pounder’s feet were now practically on the ground. The train car had tipped over so that he was now standing upright by having lain vertical earlier. He let go of the seat and looked out towards the car door in the back. People in the mob were beginning to pound on it, and it wouldn’t be long before they broke the steel door down.

“We need to escape now…” he said, repeating himself. “Any chance we had in a fight is lost.” He began to climb up on top of the seat he had clutched to, grunting slightly as he pulled himself up. “Move out through the windows up there…”

The pounding on the doors continued. As Pounder pulled himself up towards the window now located at what passed for a ceiling, he could see that the mob had managed to make the first set of dents into the car door.

[Karuka]

As the car began to tip over, Karuka's first reaction was to grab a toddler that had panicked and slipped away from its mother's grasp. She held it tightly, bracing them with her staff.

As the world righted, there was absolute chaos. The mob was still pounding at them, passengers were screaming and running around brainlessly, and chairs were starting to fall into the aisle and on top of people. It was starting to look like a hopless situation.

Not while I yet breathe.

The child's mother had been just behind her, and Karuka handed off the little screaming blonde and shoved the mother toward the back of the car. She didn't have much of a plan, but if she could get out, there probably weren't more than fifty assailants.

Granted, she'd only barely come out of a fight against thirty with some help from a very skilled friend and three bombs, and she didn't have that here. But she did have determination, courage, and something to protect. Even if it was just a two-year old whose name she didn't know.

"All right, then," she muttered, thrusting the head of her staff through a window. The glass shattered outward with a satisfactory crash, and the red-head jumped up to grab the sill as people swarmed away from the door, trying to evade capture for as long as possible.

She struggled out, ignoring the glass she brushed against - it was deflected by her vlince clothing, anyway. Two dozen or so were hanging by the door a mere stone's throw away, a licentious mob licking its chops for the sweet meat within.

Not today, boys.

With a flick of her striker, she lit the wick on her explosive. It was the only one she'd made, so it'd have to do a great amount of damage. Not that explosives were her only method of defense.

As the wick started burning, Karuka tossed her vial as hard as she could, and just before it hit the ground it exploded in the middle of the mob. She saw four hit the ground dead, and another seven too wounded to fight. A few more were slightly wounded and on fire, but not enough to incapacitate them.

Hearing the passengers flee out the back of the train, Karuka gave the mob a feral grin. They'd be on her pretty quick, but she'd make them pay.

She spotted a priest shouting directions, and grabbed one of her kunai from her belt, throwing it at him. He didn't see the thing coming until it was too late, and it hit him in the eye with a gush of blood and ichor.

The mob was rushing at her, and she held up her staff, braced for what would definitely be a fight to sing of later.

[NekoButcher]

The moment Pounder heard the explosion, he knew he wanted to stay with the red haired girl, at least until he could have gotten access to her explosives. He knew, as an older man, a test of endurance in the expanses of Salvar wouldn’t be something he could survive on his own. His knee had been injured in his battles with the Kyorl, and it would always give him pain in particularly cold weather. Already, the Salvarian winds danced in through all the holes in the car, creating a deep, uneasy chill through the place.

Pounder hated it, the sudden interconnectedness that bound him to these people he neither cared for nor expected to ever see again. He hated the irony that the one who would perhaps be the most responsible for his survival was also the least dependable, the auburn haired girl who seemed to have little regard for her own safety and far too much for being a hero. Still, Pounder made his way down from the climb he was attempting, and instead began to calculate a plan to the new reality of the situation.

“Just don’t get why she’s so caught up in not running…” Pounder thought. “Doesn’t she realize that she’s going to get in trouble if she stays around too long. There are more of them than there are of us, and explosives need to be saved.

Instead of leaping into the fray like a few more excited warriors, Pounder was glad that his weapon of choice, the crossbow, gave him a perfect opportunity to hang back. The seat provided an excellent source of cover. Bolted to what once was the floor, it provided Pounder with a buffer both from frontal attacks and ones to his most vulnerable side. “If only I could reach over,” he thought regretfully. Even so, he fancied his chances.

The occasional hitman loaded the first bolt into his crossbow as he looked out on the madness. He could tell that none of the rioters had noticed him yet, and he took advantage of that. Not that they were armed with projectile weapons anyways, but Pounder’s intuition was always to anticipate the worst. He didn’t know if any of them would have had a projectile weapon handy to throw in his direction.

“Maybe I shouldn’t shoot at all,” the experienced hitman considered. His ammunition was scarce, and he knew that the more bolts he used now, the less he could use when he was on his own and really needed them. With his face formed into a tight line of consternation, he looked out on the red haired girl and the others who had more eagerly taken to the fight. They were all fools, and Pounder felt no obligation to sustain their existence, and yet as he looked at the crowd breaking into the car, and their shock at losing one of their priests, the hitman knew that if he had an opportunity to kill an important figure, then he had to take it. “Only way to cripple them,” he decided.

Pounder waited calculatingly and the moment that he saw another man decked in ceremonial robes, he pressed the trigger. He smiled as the bolt hit right in the middle of the forehead. That was, after all, the benefit of waiting till he saw the whites in his enemy’s eyes.

[Karuka]

There hadn't just been fifty of them. There'd just been fifty of them for any given car. Up and down the train, the battle was raging, but the odds seemed hopeless. There were hordes of fanatics against a handful of confused and frightened passengers. This had never been supposed to happen. There was no reasoning behind it.

It's a random world, random things will happen.

The past few minutes had been spent in an intense fight with multiple opponents. She saw so many limbs and weapons flying around her that she forgot that most of them were the ghostly ones that had yet to happen and was just reacting to everything she could.

Her premonitions had kept her from being gutted so far, but there were too many; for every man she knocked unconscious, ten more swarmed her as other fighters fell. She almost wished that she had a better offensive weapon, but she was sure she was better off with her staff. It was weapon and shield in one.

Of course, you can only expect things to go so well when you're fighting too many people at once, and so one man managed to get behind Karuka and strike her hard on the shoulder. A powerful electric discharge ran through the red-head's body at this contact, and she fell, twitching.

She had no control over any of her muscles, and so she watched helplessly as a sword plummeted down toward her throat. There was a sudden flash and a loud, thunderous roar that split the wide rolling plains, making everyone look up. A great blue feline had appeared, spots and whorls decorating its powerful frame and primal hunger sharpening its teeth.

The first thing it did was swipe its massive paw over Karuka, battering the men away from its temporary master. Some of them hit other men with such force that neither could have possibly survived the impact. But that was just the beginning. Leaping into the horde of religious freaks, the Guardian of the Liviol Sanctum started ripping and slashing, biting and stomping, as though the people were mice for his pleasure.

Karuka took advantage of the confusion and panic inspired by the suddenness and unexpectedness of her old friend's appearance by getting her muscles back under control, standing up and punching one of the mob that was shocked into stillness by the cat's actions. He looked at her stupidly, bringing his weapon to bear, but she backhanded him with the bracelet she'd been given as a gift. One of the spikes hit him right in the eye with a sickening SPLORK!

She dimly heard yelling from the far side of the train, a couple of men urging passengers to flee west, away from the attackers. That was good, that way, the most lives could be saved. It was just her job, and the job of her fellow fighters, to give them as big a head start as they possibly could.

She looked at the carnage going on in front of her as a final, triumphant roar rumbled over the landscape and the cat shook before vanishing into the air. Almost eighty bodies littered the ground, just from the beast's rampage. The screams of the wounded and dieing sent chills down her spine, but moreso when more screams started, and people started slapping at themselves. Karuka didn't know what was happening, but she knew that the carnage was just continuing.

She was temporarily in the clear, so she knelt down, stuffing quite a bit of saltpeter and sulfur into another vial, pouring in some oil, wetting a scrap of cloth and stuffing it in with a cork. When the charge resumed, she'd be able to take out several more.

But soon it would be in her best interests to run with everyone else.

[NekoButcher]

The moment that Pounder saw the giant cat, he knew it was his time to run. As the rioters grew thicker, he had been fearing he had passed up his best opportunity for escape. Now, thanks to the magic of a very powerful girl, he felt as though his chances were considerably better. Not waiting like the other warriors that were standing by the red haired girl’s side, Pounder used the commotion being caused by the giant cat to escape.

First, he climbed up onto the seat so that he could reach up and grab the seat above. It was a bit difficult, the seat was a bit taller than him, and even for a hitman trained as well as pounder, it took a good deal of his strength to pull himself up to a point where he could reach the seat above him. He managed to do that well enough, ignoring a woman pleading that he take her baby with him. He had enough trouble holding the crossbow he needed for survival without adding someone’s kid.

“This isn’t charity…” he thought snidely. “Get red head to blow a hole somewhere else…” Once he had dug his claws into the cushion of the seat above him, he needed both of his hands just to pull himself up towards the window that was now directly above of him. It was a grunting struggle, and Pounder was grateful for the giant cat that afforded him the opportunity.

Others, more kind than Pounder, were helping up the children incapable of carrying themselves up to the top of the train, so by the time the older hitman had carried himself up through the window that had once been on the train’s side, he found there were more children there than able bodied fighters. Shaking his head, he cringed. “I pick the one damn train full of these damn do gooders…” he lamented.

“You need to help us!” one of the few adults called out to Pounder before he even had time to catch his breath. The hitman looked up to see the man who was calling to him. He was a strapping young man in his twenties and carried a large broadsword on his back. If he had been more inclined to be sarcastic, the feline might have suggested that this muscular man had enough strength to spare.

Pounder scowled, but he realized that he had little choice. He moved gingerly on his knee that didn’t bend properly, just so that the expectations on his help would be limited . “Sure,” he said. “I’ll offer what I can.”

The hitman smiled as he began to help lift up people from the windows, helped all the time by the man who had called him.

“It’s good of you to help with your injury,” he said. “My name is Markham.”

Pounder just continued to smile.

[Karuka]

Karuka stood, braced for the charge, ready to light and throw her explosive at any second. Hopefully the car would be clear before the main body mowed the defenders over.

The train shook as hundreds of feet pounded down its length, and as the cars cleared ahead of her, fellow defenders retreated, some opting to run as well. They were in luck, though.

From the back, a man's voice called out to Karuka and the handful of men at her side. "We're clear! Let's start to retreat!"

The men standing with her fled, but Karuka stayed. She watched them advance, yard by yard, and when they were almost within throwing range, she lit her bomb and threw it hard before leaping down and running herself.

She felt the heat on the back of her neck before she heard the catastophic BOOM of the grenade. This was her most devastating yet, she'd packed so much explosive powder into the vial.

She was stunned as a second, larger explosion rocked the train, powerful enough to throw her down and send bodies flying. The explosions continued, eleven in all, the train's great engine going so hard that it lit the landscape near it in a violent conflagration.

The scent of burning flesh and hair was overpowering, and as Karuka picked herself up to keep running, she saw why.

A smoldering priest lay not far from her, clearly dead. On his ring finger she saw something sparkling, a ring with a large gem in the center.

It's probably significant, somehow...

If it would help her and the victims survive until they reached the next town, it was worth stealing from a dead man, and she grabbed it off his finger, slipping it onto her left middle finger as she continued to run. She didn't know how many survivors there were or how far it was until the next town, only that it would be a long, dangerous, and difficult journey, slowed by little and old legs. But she had to stick with the group as long as possible.

[NekoButcher]

After having got a few other children through the top of the train, Markham prepared to run. “We’ll start moving them down,” he said, looking at Pounder as if he needed confirmation of the plan. “You get down there, and I’ll throw some of the smaller kids to you…”

For once, Pounder was benefiting from one of the few benefits of his race that he maintained. Despite the distance to the ground, he leapt onto the cold ground and landed well, on all fours. With a bemused smile, he looked around him. The ground, was not snowed on, but it was cold and hard with winter. In a stroke of good fortune most likely caused by the girl with the giant cat, there were no rioters around. Acknowledging this bit of luck, the hitman stayed long enough to catch the first child that Markham threw down to him.

He sighed and caught more children, helped down old women and even some younger warriors who were nervous about the fall. Pounder helped them all, given the situation, though he particularly loathed helping the dark elves. Many times he considered fleeing, but each time, he decided against it, knowing that he would need to rely on people like Markham and the red head for his survival, and that if he went off abandoning the children, he would be on his own. Grudgingly, he continued, though he wished there was a way to seeing what was going on in the train.

After what seemed like far too long, Markham called down to the rest of the train. “We’re clear! Start to retreat!” The large muscular man dropped down next to Pounder and grabbed his shoulder. “Come mate,” he said. “Let’s run!”

“Thought you’d never ask,” Pounder thought to himself.

Seconds later, there was an explosion, an explosion much louder and ferocious than the first. Cries of pain echoed through the area, but it was impossible to tell if they were rioters or passengers from other cars.

The catman paid them little mind. He just watched with wide eyes as the engine, tilted on its side, careened out of control. Searching for cover, he cursed the fact the landscape was so flat that there was nothing for him to hide behind. “Even just a snowbank…” he thought as his gait turned more panicked. “Damn its Salvar… if it’s going to be this cold, some snow for cover would have been nice!”

Eventually, he had moved far enough from the train that he could catch his breath. There was nothing but a wide expense of plain between him and the train, but the distance was enough for any bits of debris. Pounder could see that there were a few that hadn’t been so lucky, the only thing that littered the ground other than the plants that died in the cold were corpses from the train.

“Shame, isn’t it?” Markham said, looking on the carnage. Pounder had to agree.

[Karuka]

The sound of a scream to Karuka's left caught her attention, and she saw a woman writing on the ground, hit by a piece of shrapnel. It was a death she was responsible for, and the only one so far that tugged at her heart.

"Please! My baby!"

As much as she wanted to keep running from the fire that was practically licking at her heels, Karuka stopped and knelt by the woman, the same woman who had lost her toddler at the beginning of all the chaos. She still held the screaming toddler, but now she held her out to Karuka.

"Please! She has an aunt in Knife's Edge by the name of Katherine Monsted. Please..."

Gathering the baby in her arms, Karuka nodded. "I'll get your child to her aunt...be at peace...be at peace."

She didn't have the time to see to the woman's wounds, or even sit with her as she died. She merely held the child and kept running.

Twenty minutes later there was no pursuit, and the running band of survivors was stumbling across the plains toward a distant clump of woods. There were all too few young and strong survivors, just herself, a man in his mid twenties named Markham, and a handful more.

Karuka's two-year-old had quieted, too little to understand what had just happened, and now she rode in a dazed silence on the red-head's back, despite the offer of the muscular Markham to carry the little one. This one, little Meg, was her charge.

"We need someone who knows the land. Hopefully there's a river somewhere near here, and a shelter where we can see who's injured and how badly. We need people who can hunt to scout for food, we have a lot of mouths to feed. We need those who can fight to be on guard, we'll need rotating shifts at night. We only have a few strong enough to fight, so we can't afford to wear them out. We also need women who can't fight to mind what children and elderly there are. Everyone looks out for everyone, that way we all stand the best chance."

Unbidden, lessons that Karuka had listened to during her childhood while the boys had been trained as warriors and defenders of her hometown came to mind and out of her lips, and all of it was met with a sort of respectful chuckle by Markham.

"You know a lot for such a harmless-looking girl, Missy Karuka. I know the land well enough, there's a river only a couple of miles north of here. We can get all set up there."

Karuka nodded, shifting Meg slightly as the toddler fell asleep. That plan seemed good to her.