Round One Part A-2v2

[Solar Haven]

Begins March the 8th at 12:01 am EST. The fight ends March the 23rd at 12:01 am EST.

Participants:

Eiskalt:
Roht Mirage

Doge

Attackers:
Kroom

The-Marquis

[Roht Mirage]

Leila nestled her nose into her scarf as she marched. The tops of her cheeks were bright pink from cold and exhaustion. In her mittened hands, she hugged her ragged dolly so tightly that it might bust a seam. The hips of adults bumped against her as they all stepped in the same tired tempo. They were muttering; quiet, careful, scared. She didn't listen, though. It took all her willpower -already strained from holding back her tears- to keep focused on the feet of the woman next to her.

Under the fuzzy hem of her hood, she eyed Nety's bright red boots. She really loved those boots. She liked to walk around in them every time she went next door. They looked like they had been painted with fresh berries. Against unbroken snow, they looked like a topping on desert. That always used to make her smile. Not now. She hugged her dolly tighter and told herself that her shiver was for the midnight cold.

“Hey,” came a far away voice, gruff and mean. The adults started to slow. Leila wanted to keep going, but Nety grabbed her shoulder and beckoned her eyes upward.

“Lei. If anything happens, you know where to run, right?” she asked as quietly as she could. Leila had to strain up on her tippy-toes to hear over the night's chilly breeze and the unabated shouting.

“Home?” she asked hopefully.

“No!” Nety sounded angry... or sad. “No,” she said more gently, “Go west.” She pointed to the right from their direction of travel. “Keep the moon at your left side, and look for a group of people waiting. They're there to help us.” She stopped talking in that sharp way that adults do when they think they might be wrong.

Mommy and Daddy had talked the same way when they said, “Everything will be fine, angel. Don't be scared.”

The adults had come to a complete stop. They shuffled uneasily. Looking between their coats, Leila could see the man approaching their group from behind. He was limping, but he walked quickly and kept shouting. There was red light behind him. It reflected off the beautiful windows of Unum, the “City of Lividus Chalybs”, Eiskalt's bright jewel, or so she had been told. It looked ugly now. Like blood, or.... fire? The homes were all made from Lividus; safe as stone, strong as steel. They couldn't burn. Unless-

“Wizards and witches,” Leila breathed, repeating her mother's words. She had sounded scared. Leila now knew why. She opened her coat and tucked the dolly against her chest to keep it warm and close – to keep it from shaking with fear.

“You got bloody snow in your ears?” the limping man shouted even as one of their captors stepped closer.

“Wha'ya want?” growled the captor. He lifted his big, black crossbow.

“Message,” growled the stranger. “The fight's turnin'. They need fresh bodies.” He shrugged toward one side, indicating the damaged leg that was hidden by his long, forest-green coat.

The man with the crossbow huffed and lowered it. “Not my bleedin' problem. We caught these ones trying to escape.” He took a step toward them suddenly and violently. The adults swayed only slightly, and the pressure of their legs kept Leila from recoiling. “We told you, lil shits. Stay in your bloody homes!”

The limper barked out a cruel laugh. “What homes?”

“Not my bleedin' problem,” the captor repeated, reflecting some of the evil laugh right back. “Order is payin' two gold a head for people who think they're some sort of refugees.” He sneered at them.

“Thirty for anyone who gets in on the fight,” Limp said with a twitch of his head toward the distant flashes of bloody light.

The crossbow turned on them as its owner did a cruel and heartless calculation. “Fifteen in this group. Hell, we'll take it. You want an easy thirty, cripple?”

Limp muttered, “Fine. Where's base from here? I'm getting bloody lost with everythin' covered in this white garbage.”

The crossbow man pointed. “East at the next street. Try not to get lost.” He laughed mockingly and motioned for their other captor to join him. He moved into Leila's view with his own crossbow pointed at the group. He must have been watching them, or some would have run during the conversation.

“Give'im their pointy shit.”

Captor number two, with weapon still staring, dumped a bag from his shoulder. It wumped onto the snow-covered street.

“They'll outrun you, cripple,” the first captor said with another mean laugh.

Limp cracked a smile, then turned to them. He opened his coat just enough to show one arm of a crossbow even bigger and blacker than the others. “Any of you little slush maggots try running, I won't catch you,” he shouted like the first rush of a storm over the mountains, “But this beauty bloody well will!”

He was given an amused nod and a wish of, “Good babysittin'.” Then, the two able-bodied men ran toward the light... and what might have been screams.

Limp swaggered closer to the group, powerful in spite of his injury, and just looked at them for a while. He had a narrow face with old lines all across it, and eyes as grey and cold as steel. For what seemed a long time, he didn't say a word. Nor did her adult companions until Nety bumped a hip to her shoulder. “Get ready to run,” she whispered as she took a slow step toward Limp.

Leila gripped Nety's coat like an icicle. “No! Stay with me!” she tried to say, but could only shake her head desperately.

“Are they gone?” Limp suddenly asked.

A chorus of bewildered mutterings answered him. “Yes,” Nety spat over the confusion, “What are you going to do to us?” She sounded hard and strong, a woman of Lividus. Leila inched behind her leg.

“First,” Limp said in a voice that was -in one instant- transformed into something soft, cheerful, and very feminine, “I'll give you these back.” He (she?) toed at the bag and, without any sign of a limp, kicked it over. Short daggers and clubs spilled out. The better weapons had been taken by the fighting young, leaving these for them to guard their homes with. Until the homes started falling.

No one moved. Grandfathers and children and women left to mind both all just stared as disbelief turned to suspicion. Limp frowned. Leila shuffled forward, though Nety gave a yank on her hood and hissed. He doesn't seem... she thought, but couldn't finish it. There was something in that frown and the way it gave light to those unusual eyes. Limp looked at the girl, gave a meek shrug that didn't match the angry lines on his face, and leaned forward into his palms. He scrubbed at his face as if cleaning it, then rolled his hood back. The adults gasped or recoiled, now so much more confused than scared.

He had turned the rest of the way into a she. Her skin was dark, yet kind of golden. Her hair was even darker. Her eyes hadn't changed color, but they shone with gentleness. Most strangely, above her eyes was a mark -a tattoo?- that looked kind of like a bird drawn in white sunstreaks. “I'm Astarelle,” the woman said kindly, “I'm with the Ixian Knights, and I'm going to get you out of here.”

Ello, my peeps (and dog). We're in Unum, Eiskalt's most city-ish city. See wiki here (http://www.althanas.com/world/showwiki.php?title=Eiskalt+Wikia).

[Doge]

Carried by winds and whims across oceans deep and blue, to an icy island of the Eiskalt. There pushed by a morbid obsession of Ordered Hands carrying the flags of war. Nine rose to fight, with more joining their banner of peace. War would be had, with peaceful swords just as sharp as those raised in anger. A pet finds itself in the wild, a place among unimaginable danger, riding the tide of fate just as it rode upon a ship to arrive. It craved not peace, or war. It carried with it another burden, one crafted from empathy. Where there was suffering, there he was, where there was wrong, he brought right.

Our story today focuses on the little yellow dog called Doge. He had found himself in a rather unusual situation, in this narrator's opinion one that he probably could have avoided if he wasn't so attached to children. Perhaps its just because I am a disembodied voice, but I fail to see why one should help people who happen to be young more than the ones that are older. I mean it'd be so much easier to just let them be sold as slaves wouldn't it?

I digress. Doge had been making a slow journey towards Castle Eiskalt when he found the group of civilians. He didn't know why they were going towards the Castle, frankly, it didn't matter. He decided to help them because they needed it. Again with that empathy bit. In a rare show of emotional control for an animal, Doge had been waiting for the time to strike, skirting around the group while he waited for one of the guards to leave. His opportunity never came, that is until the sand priestess arrived and did it for him. Doge was now superfluous to the beautiful Astarelle.

Well, that problem solved itself, Thought Doge, spoken words missing from the pet. Only his thoughts could paint as vividly as his mind perceived.

Doge pranced through the snow towards Astarelle and the child Leila. His paws dug into the snow with each step and had they not gone numb an hour ago it would have been painful. Instead he hopped through the snow with his tongue lolling out the side of his mouth like a moron. He reached the dashing Astarelle and promptly sat down and stared up at her.

“Woof!” he barked, hoping to convey that he was here to help and thinking her for assisting but that he could take it from here.

Ears pointed to the sky, eyes alert and sharp he stared at the priestess. Is yellow fur, partially wet from the melting snow hung dripping from his stomach. He was ready to help these people and he if this woman was the one to help, then so be it.

Doge had a way, a rather silly way in my opinion, of making people like him. Sitting looking at the two women and girl their eyes couldn't help but soften. Astarelle reached down and ran her hand through the dog's forehead fur. Lucky bugger. It took only a moment before Leila joined her, wrapping her arms around Doge as most children seem to not have boundary issues. I didn't need to be the all knowing narrator to see that Doge had fallen in love with the little kid.

"Is this your dog?" Asarelle asked, the mysterious dog not belonging to anyone after the incident that changed his life.

“No” Responded Leila, but Doge would not have minded a different answer. Leila released the dog and stepped back and looked up as Asarelle. So many questions, but time would not allow the answers. The group stepped forwards quickly, taking the weapons offered.

[The-Marquis]

The sword hung in his hand, like a strike of lightning in the night. He held it at an angle, limply, uncertainly, like he was not even sure he wanted to hold it, or even be here; yet he was. And it was. The castle itself was, a symbol of old-world rich-man's pseudo-democracy. Indeed, most verily, Aesh found, he hated it more in the fact he himself was an example of such old pretender ideals, faking the idea that he as an aristocrat "represented" the people. Yet his lithe mind kept him sane - by standing against such things and standing here, helping the rather less than legitimate forces to take over a land of extreme profit, that gave him a purpose. A way to cope with his dull life. Something active to do in a war that did not involve him being manipulated yet again.

Like a ghost who had been dead for many years already the Marquis strode down the darkened street as the city screamed and cried around him. It sounded like a mother who had lost her children, a fox kitten who mourned her dead parents, a merchant who watched his life's works turning mercilessly to ash. Yet he kept striding, the alchemist in the night, with hand full of iron and heart full with determination.

He came to a halt at the corner of two streets at hearing the sounds of mumbling. It was joined with the jingling of metal, loud clanking. Pressing himself against the wall, the Marquis paused, before peeping around it. As the smoke cleared like a lifting mist he watched and looked and perused, watching the action before him in these crossroads of sorts. An invisible hand wiped away the smoke obscuring his view, showing a group of people - peasants it looked like, ordinary folk. They were seemingly inhabitants of this dying city, each huddled close to the next. They seemed frightened, or at the very least lost, their faces stark with hunger, desperation and sorrow at the concept of losing their homes. The concept. Well, the idea.

Well, actually, the reality.

The Marquis narrowed his eyes and tilted his head, slightly, as an unexpected member was added to the small society. A dog, not more than three foot in length, pattered its way towards a woman slightly separate from the rest. The others of the group seemed to mill around her, as if she was the centre of their world. Centre - or end point, it could have been either.

Either way she was gifting out weapons as if it was Yuletide, something the Marquis did not agree with in the slightest. And the dog - it seemed intent on sticking by her. It let out a quiet bark - a noise that was high, irritating to say the least - and Aesh had a sudden longing to decorate the walls with its entrails; the annoying, stupid, useless mutt.

[Kroom]

The snow flurrying from the sky was more than enough reason for Jak to keep his hood up. It was an odd bit of fate that he always found his way back to the colder parts of the world. He hadn't been annoyed by cold in years, it was true, but his apparent proclivity for lower temperatures was becoming tiresome. The smith still remembered his travels with Teiran's caravan, passing through the warmer southern climes, and it was a pleasant memory. Maybe I'll visit Radasanth after this business is done. He hurried on.

A voice in the back of his head squeaked a concern that he might not actually make it out of 'this business' with his life, and Jak ignored it. He'd always survived, and he intended to keep surviving. The smith was here to earn some coin over a forge, swing his sword a bit, and then he'd move on, like he always did. Somebody had once told him that long-established habits were the hardest to break; well, Jak was in the habit of living, and he had no intention of quitting. He hurried on.

A gust of wind played with his cloak, attempting to tangle it around the crossbow cradled in his arms. With a growl, he batted away the swirling fabric and hitched the weapon up, re-situating it into the crook of his right arm. The thick wooden stock was cold under his fingers. He liked this weapon. Jak had seen crossbows before, but he'd never been able to lay hold of one for his own use. Working in a military armory, however, had its benefits. He hurried on.

The smith had been patrolling with two other hired blades, when they'd caught sounds of combat. They'd all run to the fight, and found on of the other patrols going at it tooth and nail with the enemy, having run wide-eyed blind into a group of those Ittian – no, that wasn't right; Icky-an? Jak couldn't recall. No matter. A group of the enemy, waiting in a stable with wagons and weapons. The smith hadn't heard how they'd been discovered. When the actual soldiers arrived, an officer had ordered Jak and the other two to go make report to some captain, and, “keep your eyes open for more of the shits!” They'd set off right away.

As they approached an intersection, Jak heard footsteps coming from the street ahead of him. Somebody carrying a naked sword hurried to the corner. Jak reflexively readied his crossbow to bury a bolt in the man's ribs, but checked himself. He recognized the clothes and the bearing – some lower noble that had joined up with the Order. Called himself 'Marquis' or somesuch. He'd come down to the armory once, and accosted Jak as the nearest smith at hand, demanding a handful of various trite materials. The smith remembered the disdainful way he'd eyed the rough world of the anvil and furnace.

Now that same noble was peering about as if he sought something. The three mercenaries slowed to quick walk as they entered the crossroads, leather boots slapping on the cobblestones as they approached the Marquis. Jak was about to address the man across the road when the smoke was cleared away, and all four men saw the same thing at the same time. Arming peasants? Refugees? Jak's stomach twisted, and he suddenly felt like he was at the top of long slope, beginning to slide and unable to stop himself.

The mercenaries turned the corner and marched towards the refugees. All three men carried the heavy iron crossbows. As they drew closer, Jak hailed the group.

“Ho there!” he barked. Maybe these were new recruits for the Order, though he doubted it. Who is that woman? What's she doing here? These refugees would have been sent to one of the armories if they were new recruits. The sliding feeling worsened. “What's your business?” His flanking comrades spread out to the sides, weapons cocked and poised to fire.


OOC Synopsis: Jak & two mercenaries encountered the IK rendezvous, which is now under attack. Jak & the other two are en route to report to some officer, and enter from the western street, then turn right and are staring down Roht, Doge, & the refugees.

[Roht Mirage]

Edit disclosure: I asked Doge to add a bit on the end of his last post. It shouldn't affect what you guys wrote.

Bury me in a harpy nest, the fallieni woman cursed.

“They aren't with you,” the red-booted woman said aloud, but only to confirm it for the group. A club that might once have been a very sturdy table leg twitched in her grip. Her other hand beckoned the small girl, who reached for it like shade at noon.

Astarelle hissed, “Take care of Leila.”

Red Boots stepped away and pulled the girl close. “How do you know her?”

“Later. If this doesn't work, get everyone through the alley behind us. Stay out of the streets. Don't stop for anything.” She added, for reasons she couldn't quite fathom, toward the dog, “Help them.”

The expression on Red's face was as war-torn as the city. Suspicion versus fear versus concern for a stranger. “And you?”

Astarelle just gave her a smile, then moved to speak with the unshaven, thick-armed man. His accomplices were fanning out. She side-stepped to keep any stray shots at her from hitting the refugees. “Recruits,” she barked, trying to sound mean using her own voice and face. It only proved the need for a 'gruff' disguise.

The three men seemed wary, then outright suspicious as they examined the group: eight elderly men and women, some with more fight in their eyes than others, three middle-aged women, three youths barely old enough to wed, one too young to rightly be out this late at night, and a yellow dog. If the enemy force wasn't interested in recruiting kitchen help, this could go very bad, nevermind that- No. Blast it. No. They had come from the direction of the rendezvous; the plain-clothes soldiers, the covered wagons. The unfathomable cold bit down, exhaling sharply across her bare face and hands. She cringed into the plush collar of her coat as her bravado-tinged smile died of exposure.

Plan B. The 'B' stood for 'Bury me'.

Astarelle twitched a finger. Down the street, two houses distant from her back, a pile of cut logs tumbled over. All across the intersection, breaths caught, eyes darted, and crossbows wavered, but only a bit. It'll do. She thrust one hand out to the side, jangling the woven bracelet of reed about. With a sudden chorus of desert whispers, sand burst from her coat in the direction of her hand. Then, it followed the motion as she gestured a great sweep and upheaval. A cloud of Fallien gold and captured Eiskalt white blasted upward in a shroud around the refugees.

“Here! Move!” bellowed Red Boots.

From her left pocket, Astarelle drew an object and threw it high into the night. Like a rising blue star, it twinkled until her cloud obscured it. She could still feel it, though, as it reached the peak of its ascent.

A crossbow string, maybe more than one, thrummed.

Astarelle left her feet on a spur of midnight that cut through the cloud. It pinned her coat to a point between her breasts. She opened her mouth to scream a soundless, breathless scream as she fell backward.

The pendant landed. Somewhere. Astarelle, in a rippling streak of blue light, did not.

That is, she did not land in the trodden snow of the street. She instead lay upon the pillowy fluff of a rooftop. The sapphire pendant was once more in her hand. It lacked some of its magical warmth. Two left, she mused drunkenly, then gasped. How am I-

Gasping hurt. She lifted her head from her snow-angel to see the bolt sticking through her coat. She surmised that is also went through her sweater, her shirt, her double-layer of hardened sand armor, her skin, and -she winced- part of a rib. Like a thorn in the foot, it birthed an excessive amount of pain, yet with the added bonus of being solidly and nauseatingly affixed to her ribcage. Astarelle gripped it in freezing finger, rolled onto her side, and wrenched it from herself with a small (but only because she bit her lip until she tasted blood) whimper.

Her crossbow rolled off her hip to dangle before her legs. She gripped its hilt and wrenched the string back, focusing the pain into a harsh exhale. It locked a moment before her breath failed. “Run,” she whispered as she crawled for the end of the roof and fumbled a bolt from her belt quiver.

In her wake, she abandoned the bolt with the crooked nose and a kiss of her blood. Drifting snow began to bury it.

[The-Marquis]

"What's your business?!"

Aesh supressed his leaping heart from springing out of his chest. Tightening his hand around the hilt of his rapier he held himself upright, keeping in the shock from the suddeness of the statement. He blinked a couple of times, quickly, repetitively, and that was the only sign of any distrubance that he felt. After all, he was given his education for a reason, and that was to never show his true feelings.

He flickered around his gaze to meet the blacksmith's, the one who had spoken. He recognised the voice, with a slight shock. At some point or other, in his dealings with the black market and the various secret orders The Marquis had happened across, he had obviously met this individual. A human man, rather strong, with a crossbow in his hands. A man who was striding forwards with two others in tow, straight forwards into the crossroads.

He caught the woman's attention, the one who gifted the weaponry; a fact that was not surprising. She turned - then responded with some sort of bellowing scream. She barely moved, but Aesh saw a turn of her fingers, something he recognised as a magical stance. His Elvish eyes, his precise knowledge and his latent ability for magic told him it was magical, a magical sense, a way to make something occur that would not have naturally occurred else...

It was soon followed by the hollow clanking sounds of wood rolling into the street. Clump, lump, slump, roll.

The other men, the blacksmith plus the two crossbowmen were distracted for that moment, but The Marquis took the initiative. As bolts were released, strings twanged and instincts were activated, Aesh threw himself into the fray. His Elvish athletics took him faster and further than the others. It was seconds before he changed stance from standing hidden, to full charge, sweeping up his rapier. With it he bashed past the blades of the unsuspecting civilians, knocking them from the hands who had barely held them for long enough, parrying one, and then forcing one out of a hand altogether. The dagger flew across the street, a streak of silvery-grey in the white world of smoke and snow, then embedded itself into a wall opposite.

More bolts. Thud, rollomp, thwack.

Aesh slammed down a foot onto the cobbled ground and threw himself into a leaping jump, over the head of a young girl. His foot caught her on the side of her head, sending her sprawling, and a grin spread across his face. Solidly, yet lithely, he landed a foot away, on the balls of his feet, rapier flicking out to the side. He found his balance in a moment's breath, then threw himself upwards, launching off yet again.

Yet again, assailing into the air, his eyes now fixed on the girl who had helped them. The Yuletide girl he did not recognise, but had already identified to be the enemy.

She was falling back. Falling so, against the snow and sand she had cast by her spell. Though he wished it was all snow. Then the droplets of red would be like cherries atop cream.

Back against the snow, my dear,
Back against the snow,
And soon you'll bleed into the snow, my dear,
You'll cover the white with red.

Snow, thump, hell, she fell. Half-elf, full elf, or whatever she was, Aesh could tell there was something special about her. Which made him all the more furious. All teh more angry, all the more... what was the word? Un-sympathetic?

The girl let out a light grunt as she was shot with a bolt, straight into the chest. Something which filled the noble with a strange glee. A joy, a private, secret sense of glory with which he felt in his heart. Bursting from his heart, into his arteries and veins. A deepness in his aorta, glory, hurrah.

With one hand he kept a hold of his rapier, with the other he clutched hold of the side of the roof she lay upon. He aimed to swing and pull himself up beside her, with the balance and strength in the balls of his feet. As he did so the peasants beneath him cried out, rallied in a rebellion. He shouted down at them to cease their squabbling but kept his eyes on the girl struggling, struggling to sit up after a blow. After the blow that seemed to have winded her. The peasants waved their baldes at his feet like they would wave palm branches at festivals, amateurishly like inability in the night.

It was inability in the night. In the dead of night, in the burning city, in the burning night.

[Doge]

Fiery brown eyes; lit with a rage burned from within the normally joyful dog's face. A leaf cast from a far off tree, caught now in ice tinged with a abstract cruelty that was beyond the understanding of a simple pet. The ire, born flames truer than those sitting metaphorically on the creature's face. The elf has bypassed the desert's protection, but Doge would not rest until he had felt the dog's wrath. The yellow creature turned on the spot, lifting his head to the confused refugees. With a commanding boom he barked into the air.

Most of the refugees took the hint, at least the ones not stupid enough to risk their life for a dog and a sand woman. They turned and ran. The girl Leila was not one of them. The dastardly elf had literally knocked the sense out of her and she sat stunned in the snow. Nety, or sexy red boots as I like to call her, grabbed the child and pulled her to her feet. They made to move, but the guards had other plans. A bolt whizzed through the air, causing Nety to fall backwards in surprise and drage Leila with her.

You bastards... Thought Doge, unable to vocalise his curse he was left uttering a guttural growl. It would have been impressive if not for the fact he was a little yellow dog. What was impressive however was what would happen next time the sexy sand priestess attacked someone. The dog didn't have many talents I consider worthwhile enough to talk about, but one of them was was his Doge Punch. No one knew its name because Doge couldn't talk, but if they did, and if he was more well known, people would know that the next time the person gifted with Doge Punch attacked it would burst into flames. This time it was cast on Astarelle, and only once her attack struck would the flames be extinguished. It was, as far as Doge goes, fairly useful. Not like his fur ability. We don't talk about that.

Doge's paw pushed down on the snow, poised and ready as he burst from his spot towards the guards harassing the refugees. The full force of Doge ploughed through the snow with a few of the more headstrong captives in tow. Like a fuse of rebellion, a yellow flash tracked towards its targets. The crossbowmen seemed to pause for a moment, unsure how to handle the yellow beast descending upon them. Their wits returned and their bows released. This time they made to kill. A little dog, pushed to far will often bark. Sometimes that is more than enough. Doge's head flicked up, his mouth dropping open as he released.

”WOOOW!” The word was like thunder, ripping through the air and casting snow aside as it smashed the arrows to the side. The blast didn't stop there; wrapping around one of the crossbowmen and sending him staggering backwards against the unrelenting force. Doge charged forwards, leaping into the air with white teeth flashing in the light. Behind him the ragtag men threw themselves forward.

[Kroom]

Jak had, in the instant before his challenge, recognized the precipitous feeling in his chest. He had felt it many times before. The night of the battle with the mage cabal, just as the ambush had begun, Jak had winced with the clench of his guts. When he heard the attack beginning, the attack that would claim Teiran's life, his head had spun with vertigo. With the touch of the light on his face, as he and the others exited Nander-Thay's cairn, the smith had stared over the edge into an abyss. He knew that feeling, from those moments and many others. It was the sensation of a looming battle; a battle which he did not want.

First to fire when the woman had cast her sand-magic was Umu, the man on Jak's left, a compact and swarthy fellow who had the look of a desert native. Kharl, the Coronian renegade to the smith's right, had pulled his own trigger immediately after. Neither knew if their bolts had struck, but both reloaded as quickly as possible, preparing to fire again.

Jak was cut off, a cloud descending into his head to fog his mind. His every sense was attuned to the wall of sand blocking his view; neither he nor his fellows would notice Astarelle reappearing on the rooftop. Yet as he stared, he could not make his body respond. He was frozen, watching, waiting for something, seeing everything as if it were occuring at half-speed. Jak was noticing everything in the narrow scope of his tunnel-vision, senses heightened as adrenaline flooded his body. His fingers crept towards the trigger, feet refusing to move while the other two began to walk forward.

Boots crunched in the snow as the Marquis ran forward, quicker than Jak's eyes could track, even now. He would have his own fight. The smith knew, by some sixth sense or perception beyond sight and sound, that the noble had tracked the sand-witch, and would deal with her himself. That would be their contest, while Jak and his comrades finished these refugees.

But nothing's right; what's wrong, why am I waiting?! Move, move move!! For a moment, Jak thought he saw himself at the edge of a crag, arms out for balance as he stared down, terrified to plunge downwards. What awaits me below? His mind's eye saw monstrous shapes in the void below, and wind bit at him, trying to drag him over the edge with invisible teeth.

Umu and Kharl were well in front of the smith by now, advancing slowly as they tracked for any sign of a target behind the sandscreen. Jak's breath was caught in his chest, dammed up and waiting for permission. Umu was about to turn and berate him when, bursting through the sand wall, came a small yellow dog, snarling and yapping. The sound returned the smith to the physical world, and sheer absurdity of the sight tugged at Jak's mouth. He smiled distractedly for a moment.

Of course, there's a dog here. Why not.

Umu and Kharl were not under any sort of fugue, as Jak was. After an instant's stupefied staring at the inexplicable dog's appearance, they raised their weapons to fire. Then the dog barked. Both men were knocked back, staggering and stumbling, fumbling their crossbows.

In his mind's eye, the wind gusted. Jak's arms windmilled, and he cried out in terror as he tried to keep his balance on the cliff – the edge under his feet felt as thin as a sword blade. He stared down, unable to look away from the writhing monsters below. This terror, this feeling that he was about to fall, had never struck him so strongly before now. The smith was not afraid of heights, and he had faced monsters before. Why am I so scared?

...why am I so scared? The man on the cliff suddenly laughed. He was not afraid of heights, and he had faced monsters before. He had faced the very same monsters who waited below, and they were familiar to him. His arms relaxed, and Jak began to lean forward, feeling the edge crumble. Hell, I know them, and they know me. He fell peacefully, spreadeagled to embrace his friends below – his family below. After all – I'm one of them, aren't I?

Jak's eyes cleared, focused, and his fingers tensed. His toes dug down, bracing against the cobblestones. Behind the dog, some of the refugees – those who weren't fleeing – were breaking through the sand wall, wielding makeshift weapons: clubs, hammers, a crude axe or two. Umu and Kharl were stumbling, repulsed by the dog's bark. Jak, a few yards behind, had felt it as barely more than a wintry gust.

Green eyes narrowed to focus on angry brown eyes. You're no normal dog. Even as the echoes of the bark died away and the dog bolted forward, Jak very calmly leveled his crossbow on the beast and pulled the trigger.

[Roht Mirage]

Bunnies provided by Monsieur Marquis.

The airborne sand, already swirling askew on the dog's charging brigade, broke apart into golden ribbons that crept just over the snow. They meandered slowly toward Astarelle's perch, but not so quickly as to give away her position just yet. Her crossbow quivered with the swelling pain of her chest as she lay, stomach down, upon the edge of the roof. Against the trigger, her finger twitched. She was -last she tested- as good a shot as the strange dog was a cunning linguist. He could sure as the depths bark, though.

The scene was too chaotic to risk an accident. In a breath, her finger and her tense neck both eased. She looked below for the refugees, notwithstanding the war vets charging on desperation and memories. They had apparently ducked into the alleys; all but Leila and Red Boots. The woman was sitting against the wall, one hand clamped over her other arm where a bolt looked to be pinning her coat to a wooden window sill set into the stone.

“Nety!” the girl wailed, “Get up.” There was shock on the woman's face as Leila's small hand unthinkingly pulled at the bolt. It came out from her small frame's force and splashed a line of red to pair with the boots in the frothed snow.

“Cedric told me-” Astarelle shouted before a pair of feet crunched into the snow beside her. She rolled and braced the butt of the crossbow against her chest. The pressure forced a hiss from her.

“Stay where you are, girl,” the snowy-haired elf said smoothly toward both her face and the wavering point of her bolt, “Unless you want to die.” The roof they occupied was slanted only slightly (A stone house need not slough off snow like a more fragile dwelling) but it was still precarious footing. For her. The elf's stance seemed so relaxed that she was disoriented just looking at him. One of them was decidedly in their element; the other, far from it.

Nonetheless, she gave a smirk out of pure showmanship. “You stole the words right from my mouth, knife-ear,” was her vulgar reply. She had never used the term before, personally, but this was not a night for politeness, and certainly not the company for it. With the crossbow trained as threateningly as possible upon the elf's torso, she shifted gingerly onto her feet. The sand that had armored her chest swept down from her clothing to give her some -but not nearly enough- traction on the snowy rooftop.

“Cedric? You saw him?” the woman called Nety shouted up to the rooftop, her matronly rage returning. It was a small but powerful flame amid the unfamiliar blood and battle.

Astarelle couldn't take her eyes off the elf. His smooth steps matched her retreat, even if one foot landed more gingerly than the other due to a seeping cut at the ankle; perhaps a parting gift from one of the refugees. With a dagger in one hand and a rapier in the other, he was the avatar of confidence. Overconfidence? She didn't want to find out. Just imagining what the crossbow's kick would do to her floating rib was making her queasy. It already throbbed like the beating of a second razor-adorned heart.

“Safe. He told me to find the girl with eyes like blue crystal, just like her mother,” Astarelle called down as she shifted to the corner of the roof above the two.

“Mommy and Daddy!” Leila squealed excitedly. There was motion below as Nety either stood or was buoyed upward by the girl's excitement.

Astarelle sighed, winced, then graced the elf with a savage smile. Just right. She could feel, in the woodpile that had rocked over earlier, an object alien to this land. The enemy, however, would not even be able to see it with how she had positioned her body on the roof's down-slope. Her fingers twitched, but did not pull the trigger. The motion was the impetus for a much more impressive display. One that was heralded by a quiet far-off scraping, then a whispering cut through the air, louder and closer to her back in the span of two blinks. As the presence -the sweet feel of home- reached her, she rocked to the side, allowing her staff of lataro reed to continue on its course from the woodpile, past her shoulder, and straight toward the elf. Her hands, still clutching the crossbow, swept low to her hip, teasing the staff with one last tug toward her lataro bracelets. The motion set it into a violent, targeted spin.

The fire, however, was not her doing. The staff was wreathed in it, turning its windmill rotation into a sputtering disk of flame. Her realization took only a moment, enough time for the weapon to close on the elf, but not enough for her to consider its destructive potential, nor how much of her staff might remain after.

The crossbow fell from her numb fingers. She barely noticed it gone; didn't even hear the fump of it landing in the snow drift against the building.

Her crossbow, still loaded, landed in the snow beside Nety. (I'm going to say no misfire. Yay for soft snow.) Marquis, I'll PM you details on the staff. We're going full Death Saucer (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSCr_w-DqtI) here, with some major limitations of course.

[The-Marquis]

The resounding volume of the bark caught Aesh under his feet. He was cast forwards, like a leaf upon the wind, and forced upwards as the peasants attacking his feet were scattered to the four corners of the crossroads. It was a strange feeling, not unlike flying in a dream, a great sense of weightlessness that lifted you up and away. Luckily for the Marquis, this was the direction he longed to travel anyway.

Lifting up his rapier just an inch higher he avoided any messy entanglement with the edge of the roof. He was somewhat assaulted as he flew; one of the blades of the peasants caught on the material of his trouser, ripping through it and slicing into his ankle. It bit into him, the dull metal and caused him to wince slightly, but the pain was nothing compared to the elation of gaining onto the roof.

The girl was still on her back when he found his footing. The wound at his ankle, although seeping blood, caused only agony and that could be ignored. Standing there, over her he grinned as he swept down the blade of his rapier and pointed it at her.

"Stay where you are, girl," he addressed her, "Unless you want to die."

It was a true sentiment enough. He would kill her without a moment's hesitation - it would not be his first, and this was the battlefield of a burning war - and move onto the next. Yet she seemed little affected by his statement. She looked at him strangely, her eyes sparkling with something he recognised as contempt, and claimed he had "stolen the words right out of her mouth."

The audacity of the speech made The Marquis even more furious - and he ground his teeth. As she got to her feet he offered no move to assist her, but made no move to attack her either. What he longed for above all now was to show her a merciless and painful death. The vegeance of The Marquis would not go unnoticed this night, he knew his name would become a rumour whispered on the lips of thousands. The terrible slayer of his enemies. The cry of the child's sorrow. The deadly aristocrat. The ally of the avenged. This would be his epithet this night, Aesh was determined to make it so.

Gently he leaned forwards, raising his rapier to guard across his body. A hundred years of learning how to fight with a simple sword and dagger had done its duty in protecting him from blade and magic alike. Against everyone except his sick-hearted brother; but that was an entire other story.

Look brother, The Marquis snarled, Look what you have made. The blood-thirsty killer you always wanted, the Weapon of the Mercenaries.

"Safe," the girl spoke to one of the peasants below, keeping her eyes focused on Aesh, "Safe ..." He did not hear the rest of the words. He did not need to hear them. The adrenaline had taken over and was pumping via his blood loudly in his ears.

Her hand twitched on the bolt of a crossbow, but twitched and that was all. He narrowed his eyes, remembering the way she had moved them before and the woodpile had broken down. Simply a distraction, he had been certain, but nevertheless he tensed, preparing for an attack.

Fortunately his instinct had been correct. No sooner had he tensed than a swish of hurricane-like air tore past his ear. From the corner of his eye, then straight before him as it whittled around behind the girl's shoulders, he saw a thin stick, twirling in the air. It was similar to the twirling staves he had seen Fallien tribal natives dance with. Sometimes they even lit the end of their staves on fire, creating swirling patterns that looked most excellent at night, but this was no mere decoration. Instead this was an attack. The speed at which the stick was circulating was enough to make it look like a disk of aggressive behaviour.

Immediately Aesh ducked, letting his injured leg collapse beneath him as the stick swung around and lashed out at him. As it past behind him the noise of its swishing as it violently abused the air diminished and he had time to look up at the girl. She was smirking, amused at his apparently poor efforts to defend himself. Narrowing his eyes he made a vow there and then to draw blood from her before the night was out, and threw himself onto his back as the stick came in for a second bought of attack. Lowering his defence in this way cause it once more to fly harmlessly overhead; wherein it missed him by an inch.

An inoffensive inch, but an inch nonetheless.

The Marquis growled, and buckled his good leg beneath him as the girl gestured once more. The stick this time made a wider arc, but Aesh considered that it would only grow more precise in its course, and faster also, as she learnt his evading tactics. Taking the extended time he placed his foot flat onto the roof and pushed himself upwards, straight towards her. As he did so he swung out with his rapier, aiming for a slice beneath her guard and directly at her hand - the hand that orchestrated this deathly disk.


My dear Roht; I have responded thusly in order to continue the proceedings. Just given the Marquis' perspective on things, and allowed you to make a response now to his cut.

[Doge]

A flash of white and yellow, a scream of anger and surprise. Doge's teeth latched onto he arm of one of the crossbowmen. The man reacted as one would expect; flailing his limb in wild abandon as he tried to free himself from the attached Doge. A bigger dog could have pinned the man, this one acted more like a some sort of living streamer, trailing after the limb. The world whipped past Doge with every movement. A crazy ride of flashing ground, sky and angry soldier.

He also looked ridiculous. The tiny dog latched onto the man's arm, barely able to hold on as he was pulled through the air. It was Doge's dumb luck that the soldier didn't have the fortitude to hold still as the heartless Jak fired a bolt towards him. It cut the air past Doge, narrowly missing both him and the soldier Doge was presently attached to. As expected, the little mutt was mostly ineffectual at hurting the man. What he did manager to do was allow the refugees to get close to the soldiers. There were five of them, haggard and unskilled, but determined.

The refugees fell on the three soldiers like a tide of human desperation. Doge's powerful jaws finally relented, and the beast was flung through the air. He hit the ground, with a thud, but was back on his feet quickly. The mighty yellow best charged back into the fray, growling with the fury of a thousand suns. With a mighty leap he latched onto man's upper thigh. The attack drew the soldier's attention. He turned, rising the butt of the crossbow to strike down the yellow avenger. Eyes, mixed with confusion and anger suddenly softened. A crack of metal on bone resounded as one of the refugees bludgeoned the man. He toppled forwards as Doge just managed to release his grip and get out of the way. Doge turned his brown eyes to the refugee in thanks, but he saw something different. The man that had saved him lurched to the side as a bolt impaled his head. It was a sickening thwack as his life was torn from the mortal coil.

Doge was horrified, a weakness of the emotional dog that seemed to continually get him in trouble. He turned back to the remaining two soldiers, another refugee had been slain in the fight. Doge was angry, his custard coloured fur bristled with anger. He ducked between the fallen bodies, zigzagging towards Jak. This time he was going straight for the leader, something he should have done in the first place.

[Kroom]

Umu had been farthest forward, and it was Umu that the dog attacked. Jak swore as he missed, hurrying to reload his weapon. Kharl was falling back, reloading his own crossbow and shouting warnings as the refugees came forward at a run. Umu hissed in anger, trying to shake the dog free and reload his crossbow at the same time – but his skill was not so great, and he had to make the animal relent before he could ready himself. His growl sharpened into a shriek, as Umu became more desperate in his fury. The animal went flying.

Kharl roared another alert – the refugees were closing. Jak had loaded another bolt and was hauling back the string of his crossbow. Attempting to reload, Umu fumbled a bolt and swore, voice cracking in dismay as the enemy came closer. He stumbled back, impeded by the attacking dog. Jak could see the terror in his eyes. He doesn't want to die.

Nobody ever wants to die, of course – nobody in their right mind. Fearing death and desiring it were not the same thing, nor were they contingent on each other. In this moment, however, Umu was proving to be healthily possessed of fear. He clawed at his crossbow, fevered with panic as he tried to ready the weapon.

The dog latched on to his leg, snarling, and the mercenary wailed another curse. A refugee closed, swinging a rude axe. Umu brained him with his crossbow, stunning the man and knocking him back. He turned to deal with the dog, reaching for a knife on his belt.

Jak listened as if from a great distance as Kharl screamed in fury, watching the iron mace pulp his friend's brains. Umu's eyes went blank, his face frozen in a twisted mask of his last emotion. Jak's guts twisted as he mechanically finished readying his crossbow, seeing the terror engraved on Umu's dead face. He died afraid, poor bastard. Spasming and frothing red at the mouth, the dead mercenary crumpled to the ground, broken like a reed.

Enraged, Kharl fired his crossbow from the hip and roared in bestial triumph as he slaughtered the man that had slaughtered his friend. The burly Coronian's sword flew into his hand, and he surged forward, screaming curses. Grim amusement flickered in Jak's mind as he fired his own crossbow. He'd seen Kharl in practice. These bastards were in for the fight of their lives in the next moment. His bolt caught one of the men in the chest, lifting him bodily and hurling him backwards with broken ribs. The shot man spewed blood from his mouth like paint from an artist's brush.

Jak had dropped his crossbow, tossing it aside as soon as the bolt was fired and jerking his blades free. He plucked a throwing knife into his left hand and gripped his short sword in his right. Then his ears caught a snarling. That same damned dog was running straight for him, teeth bared. Without realizing it, Jak bared his own teeth in answer. He flicked his throwing knife at one of the three remaining refugees, then slid backwards a step, crouching and bracing. A beast at bay, daring any of his remaining enemies to attack.

He'd liked Umu. The man had no family, no real friends beyond Kharl. He'd played a good game of dice, and he'd been an honest man as far as Jak knew. That was enough for the smith. Now, the smith was going to kill these people, these 'men' who trampled Umu's brains into the snow.

[Roht Mirage]

The lobbed forward throw and the vengefully summoned follow-up caught not so much as an ivory hair. Yet, Astarelle beamed. This. Is. Amazing! The staff seemed to not be burning away -thank Roh- even as it cut through the flurry and left a powerful trail of cinders in its wake. She started to laugh. It might have been a maniacal sound if it hadn't caught on her throbbing rib. A pained hiss escaped her, but her bug-eating grin was eternal.

As the kneeling elf braced his good leg on the rooftop, she let her staff sweep in a wide arc behind her. It rose high over the albino rooftops at the whim of her powerful gestures. The commanding bracelets thumped about on her wrists as she put her whole body into the motions, and the staff howled in vengeance for those who had already fallen in the street below.

The elf tensed for motion. For escape, no doubt. She thrust her hand forward as if it was a spear point. Her breath, stabbing, poured from her. “Can't run now!” she taunted. He didn't even try. In a race against the approaching fiery saucer, he lunged and swept his rapier upward. Metal snicked through flesh. Blood spurted. She yelped and cranked her arm back to her, leaving bits of flesh to spiral down with crimson streamers. A voice in the back of her head screamed, How bad? How bad?! She didn't dare open her clenched fist to find out.

Drawn by her recoil, the staff struck the roof between them. Its fire scattered and extinguished in a disappointing, almost adorable, cloud. Unbalanced, it toppled end over end before diving limply into the battle below.

Through the embers that fought the snow, Astarelle locked suddenly-wet eyes on the elf. His expression was triumphant and his gaze sharp with sick, vengeful promises. “Stay back,” Astarelle tried to shout, but the rooftop was no longer her kingdom to control. With a staggered breath, she almost retreated over the border.

Bury me. Her good hand delved into her pocket. Her other hand, clenched pale, wept red tears. In a flash, the sapphire pendant was in the air, arcing down to the street below. In mid-flight, glittering chips broke off it and darted back to Astarelle's hand. She took that last step, her body tilting over the void, as the chips coalesced in her palm. Return home, she willed to them. They did so, taking her with them in an abrupt streak of crystalline light.

With the pendant whole in her hand and wind caught in her hair, she crashed down in the middle of the street. The one-story drop had been shortened, but no enough to keep her breath from being knocked from her. Her chest spiked in agony, trapping and toying with a scream she wanted desperately to release.

“Back off, knife-ears,” Nety growled toward the rooftop. She stood sentinel over Astarelle, crossbow sighted and solid in spite of the red stain coming through the arm of her coat.

“Don't,” their would-be rescuer pleaded as she raised her bloody fist. Leila's small hands reached out -seemingly from no where- and cradled it as if she might hug away the pain.

Her eyes asked a silent, desperate question. “Can you take me to my parents?”

Astarelle clenched her face in a long, leaking blink. Moisture trailed down her cheeks like the cold fingertips of a reaper. She nodded. When she opened her eyes, Leila had unbuttoned her blood-stained coat. The ragged and much loved dolly fell, face first, into the snow at Astarelle's side. Leila seemed not to notice as she reached for something else: a small knife strapped to her belt. Astarelle could imagine the whisper that had accompanied its gifting.

“Use this only if you absolutely have to,” the mother would have whispered.

Astarelle wanted to grab the girl, shake her, tell her, “You don't have to.” She found, though, that she couldn't speak in the face of such bravery.

Open season on named NPCs. Message me if you want details on their dialogue/responses to whatever you might do.

[The-Marquis]

They looked less like discarded fingers and more like fat worms, melting the snow around them with their pooling remains of blood. The same red life-juice glittered on the end of his blade, quickly drying to stain the silver steel. Aesh's eyes, the copper and the pink separate irises, gleamed as they watched the white become crimson, by the work of his own hand. Naturally he had been subtly startled when the girl had disappeared. No one could expect an enemy to vanish mid-fight, but she had taken a wound. And The Marquis had inflicted it so. The gleam in his eye twisted into a vicious glow of joy and he lifted his head to stare straight at the crossbow bolt aimed at his chest.

"What do you plan to do with that?" he directly addressed the crossbow woman, standing guard over the girl. She had reappeared, so it seemed, on the ground. Many of the peasants by this time had either fled, or been killed. Two of bodies lay in the sand and snow, hands outstretched to one another like two lost lovers, perhaps even lost in the afterlife. The girl seemed not bothered with them, however; all she seemed to care about was, firstly, the fact half her hand was missing, and, secondly, a child holding a knife far too large for her own safety.

"Back off knife-ears," the crossbow-bitch grumbled, her eyes flashing madly with rage. Aesh almost laughed.

"'Knife-ears,'" he quoted, highly amused. "How imaginative for a peasant-"

Moving forwards he descended, partly, down the roof. He caught his weight under his good leg, checking its stability, before stepping forwards. His footing slipped a little on what snow had been pressed down to a more ice-like quality just on the word "peasant". Cursing out loudly he found himself crashing to the roof itself, right onto his backside. What the reaction was, was the loosening of the bolt.

Thwang; it threw itself into the air, an instinctual pounce of a predator. The Marquis scrambled, as fast as his Elvish limbs could move, with rapier and dagger still in hand. The bolt imbedded itself somewhere into the wall, however, many inches off its target. As the bitch grunted, and fluttered around to load the crossbow once more - it was clear she was not an expert in the ranged weapon - Aesh slipped off the roof, letting his previous fall just carry on and continue.

He landed on the snow under the roof, his injured ankle buckling slightly, but not much. Now on the same level as the girl he could aim for her, rather than look up or look down. Copper and pink eyes glanced over to the shallow war between the irritating mutt and the blacksmith - Kroom, he reminded himself - then back at the girl as he strode over. Grabbing the useless shaft of the crossbow from the woman as she struggled to reload, he dragged it forwards. His dagger he tucked in the base of his hand, his long fingers perfectly still retained enough room to wrap around the weapon and force her to come with it.

[Doge]

A cry for help is not easily ignored by a dog so pitiful as Doge. In this case it would save him as the blades thrown by Jak the puppy kicker bounced off the ground just in front of him. Doge didn't realise his dumb luck as he turned back and ran towards Astarelle. His feeble mind smart enough to realise that the woman and child needed his protection more than the refugees that had decided to fight. His feet padded the ground as he bound towards the women.

“Woof! Woof!” Cried Doge, his echoing voice trying to draw the attention of the high born Elf.

His body shot across the ground like a yellow bolt as he dived straight towards Astarelle. In that woman lay and ally that was far more powerful to the woman little Doge. He covered the ground quickly, charging directly wards Astarelle. As soon as he was close the dog launched himself through the air, seeking to force his stomach against the sand priestess’s face.

Like a little pervert, Doge wanted the sexy sand woman to lick his stomach fur. I guess however in this case it was less because of his perverted nature, and more because he wanted to heal her wounds. Doge carried such talents that one would describe him as mystically useless. On rare occasions they seemed to come into their own, and in this case Doge's custard tasting fur would heal some of the damage the sand woman had taken.

Doge didn't quite end it there. He once more imbued Astarelle with his Doge magic. The mutt's power would again emblazon one of the sand woman's attacks with fire. If doge could have talked, he would have asked the sand woman to protect the child and woman, to save that which he could not. If the little emotional bastard could talk, he would have fought the words through tears at his own failure to save the refugees. As it was, the little dog could only whine, and yap.

[Kroom]

As if dreaming, Jak watched his knife flit forward, a trickle of light that glimmered in the air. It spun, end over end over end, dancing towards its goal like a fairy. In that brief instant of observation, the smith remembered.

He remembered being bent over his forge, shoulders bunched and hands clenched. His tongs gripped the glowing spike of metal while his hammer sang to it – the same brutal war-song it sung to every blade he made. With each note, the burning metal cried out, pained by the cost of its transformation from a simple ingot into a cold, hard killer. The hammer's song drowned out the metal's cries, and Jak's sweat hissed reassurance. Still, the blade cried. It shrieked when, still burning, it was thrust into a bath of oil; thrust deep down, meant to drown the heat of its life. It cried out, whimpering as Jak polished the beaten edges with a gentle file.

He had tamed it in the end, beaten it into what it was meant to be: but Jak still recalled the weapon's last act of defiance. It had left a stinging kiss on his finger during its final polishing, just before it had, at last, given up the fight and accepted its transformation.

Now the knife gave a ringing howl as it met the refugee's blade – quite by accident, the weapon had been perfectly placed to prolong the boy's life. The shining weapon clattered away, moaning on the snow-covered stones.

Surging forward, Jak realized he had drawn his fighting knife. He was silent, his momentary bestiality passed. The dog, perhaps frightened by the presence of a bigger 'animal,' had fled, and now the smith only faced three of the refugees. He saw them clearly, comprehended their faces, and knew that he would forget them soon. An old man with blue eyes and an iron-gray beard, with a face that, were it not twisted in desperate fury as it was now, would have reminded Jak of his father's. An old woman with a dazzling figure, perhaps his wife, lips pursed in grim determination and wielding a woodcutter's axe. A young man – barely a man – with a mop of brown hair and eyes that shone with all the naïve bravery of courageous youth. The sight of this last one brought to Jak's mind a memory of a puppy he'd once seen, in a village, attacking an old hunting dog. It was that same foolish bravado that was blooming in the boy's face, but Jak had no intention of showing the older dog's mercy.

He was going to kill them all, in Umu's memory, and he was at peace with that.

The smith bulled forward. His first target was the old man, who attacked with a savage swing of a stonecutter's hammer. Jak ducked past him, dragging his knife across the man's chest with a backhand cut, and stabbing his short sword at the young man's face. The grandfather gasped and staggered forward, out of range for the moment. The boy's eyes flashed with terror, his bravado dissipating as bravado always does when faced with real danger. All his training, everything he thought he knew, it all vanished as he frantically batted at Jak's blade with his weapon, a rude club studded with nails. The woman proved to be the biggest threat, chopping down at Jak with a two-handed blow.

The smith leaned back, barely avoiding the axehead. Both of the men had been momentarily driven back, leaving him free to focus on this old bitch. His knife, reversed in his left hand, followed the axe-haft down and hooked around it, preventing the woman from attacking again. Jak watched her eyes – brown ones, he realized. They widened in dawning realization as the smith's short sword darted forward, passing between her teeth as she gaped in horror. The light left her eyes, and she convulsively bit the steel as she died, jaws clamping as tight as the grave around steel as sharp as the winter wind.

As though from a great distance, Jak heard the grandfather's lamenting roar, grief and fury eloquently combined without a single word spoken. His sword was stuck in the woman's face for the moment, so the smith left it there. With all the ease of breathing, his knife switched hands.

The grandfather advanced, taking long steps and spinning to give his hammer extra force. Jak could hear the youth advancing behind him. He wheeled and caught the boy's descending blow low on the club's haft, and pulled. The boy didn't know to let go, and could not contest the smith's immense strength. He was hauled forward, almost bodily leaving the ground as he stumbled in between Jak and the hammer. The iron head struck, instantly claiming a crushing victory over bone. Brains spattered the cobbles.

The grandfather's face blanched whiter than chalk. He stood numb, dropping the hammer from his trembling hands, tears welling from his horrified eyes. The smith met no resistance as he casually buried his knife in the man's throat, dispassionately watching dark blood stain the civilian clothes. Already turning, Jak left the body to slump behind him, and looked to Kharl.

His body was sprawled on the cobbles, surrounded by his two enemies. His throat had been opened by what was likely a dying blow.

Feeling oddly calm, Jak simply nodded at the spent bodies. Peace for the dead, and only the dead. Umu was avenged, but his job was not complete. Placing a foot on the woman's jaw, Jak wrenched his blade free. He cleaned it and his knife on her breasts, and sheathed both weapons before picking up his crossbow. The living have more killing to do. He loaded the weapon in six heartbeats, and turned to look down the street. There's always more work to be done.

[Roht Mirage]

Custard?

For what felt like a very long heartbeat, a taste memory overrode Astarelle's other senses. She remembered the dining hall in Ixian Castle. With the meal consumed and the sun setting, dessert was served. Sweet chocolate delicacies, tempting yet treacherous. She didn't have the taste buds for so much sugar. More often than not, while servants and diplomats and fabled warriors devoured the over-sweet cakes of sin, Astarelle just had a small bowl of custard. It seemed a symptom of the greater division. She was not one to dutifully serve, nor represent House Ixian's interests, nor carve a path for their banner – her victories had been by the mercy and judgement of the Ai'Brone. So, she quietly ate her custard and hoped for the day that -either good or bad- she would know her place in their order.

A new sensation ended the short reverie, not a taste but a tickle against her tongue. Hair?

Astarelle coughed and pushed the dog away with her hand; the one that was whole. The taste of its fur was still on her lips, and still -ridiculously- custard. She would have questioned her sanity were it not for the mural of death that the street had become. From the end of the street, leaving a killing field behind him like death's lieutenant, the broad-armed man approached. A bolt twitched hungrily in his crossbow. “Bury you,” Astarelle hissed with relative ease. The swollen knot that had pressed against her lungs was gone, though the broken rib still shifted like a guillotine blade drawn high in harsh wind.

Nety breathed curses as her red boots slid in the slush. Her crossbow, empty and useless, was locked in a tug-of-war with the elf. Whether she planned to club him with it or just wouldn't relent on principle, Astarelle felt her pride swell at the display of stubbornness. Leila, also, had the spark. She tried to run around Nety's legs, blade held skyward like the horn of a charging unicorn. “Lei!” the woman screamed. She released the weapon to seize the girl's shoulders in both hands. What might have been a disastrous meeting between the girl's blade and the elf's genitals was avoided as he jerked back at the same time that the knife slipped from her grip. “He'll kill you,” Nety snapped as if the girl hadn't known. She took a step back, dragging the child. Her heel squashed the doll deeper into the bloody snow. “Get up!” she shouted down as Astarelle, “You said you would save us.”

The Fallieni woman's hair, dishevelled, shadowed her face as she struggled to her feet. “I say a lot of things,” she bit off as if the words were acidic.

~

“Cedric?” Astarelle said to the refugee. A round man, ink stains on his fingers that shakily held a cup of steaming broth. “They said you wanted to talk to me.”

He nodded without looking up. Though he was wrapped in a blanket and seated almost dangerously close to the campfire, he still looked so cold. His lips were colorless, his fingers near blue, as if the winter night had buried frigid claws into him. “You're going back?” he asked. She nodded. He wasn't looking, but he continued in a dirge-like whisper. “Please find my daughter. Leila. She'll have her doll with her, and she has crystal blue eyes, just like her mother... had.” He sobbed suddenly as if something inside had broken for the hundredth time in one evening. “Her mother had. Her mother...”

His voice cracked and fell. The cup would have fallen as well if Astarelle hadn't grabbed it. She enfolded him in a hug that he seemed not to feel. “I'll bring your daughter back,” she promised as surely as the moon would set and day come anew.

Cedric shook. He didn't answer.

~

“And sometimes... I tell the truth,” Astarelle hissed with only a small twinge of pain. She found her footing and lurched toward the surviving -the most precious- refugees. Faint ribbons of sand were ripped from the air to encase her still-bleeding fist in a golden tomb. Her other hand snapped toward the alley mouth on the opposite side of the street, sending the pendant skyward once more without its inlayed chips.

“What are you-” Nety blurted out as Astarelle pressed a palm full of cold gemstones to the woman's bare hand – the hand that kept rein on the girl with smoldering, hateful crystal blue eyes. In a flash of much the same color, Leila and Nety were teleported into the alleyway.

“Run!” Astarelle shouted after them. Her staff bounded from the snow to fill her now-empty hand and brought in its wake a powerful swirl of sand from the air, the street, the rooftops. She darted around the elf in a dancer's spin that would have gone astray on the slick street... if not for a small, furry body butting up against her legs. “Me and the dog have got this,” she said to herself and her companion. The beast moved with her at the heart of a gathering storm. Her coat flared as every grain escaped to join the swirling mass of gold, burnt gold, grey. Each color told of a different victory. Falling snow, too, was caught in the flow, lending a haze of white that made it hard to see either side of the sand-scoured street or its inhabitants. She could feel them, though, in the parting of the grains. Two harbingers standing over the dead. She spun on long strides until the elf and the man stood in a line from her. Then, she thrust her staff forward, willing the dance-born storm to attack.

Just as before, when she imparted the desire to strike, fire was miraculously born. Not on her staff, though. This fire was a flicker and sizzle in the lunging storm, each grain burning as if they had gone a hundred days with no respite from the sun.

“Wow!” the dog barked from her side, projecting a mountain of force from its small body. What would have been the shrill abrasion of a sandstorm was spurred into a torrent that bit with savage granular teeth and burned like cinders straight from a bonfire's core. The street was painted a golden-red light by the storm, and Astarelle stared right into it, her face serene.

No matter what became of the butchering villains, or the impossible dog, or even her, she had kept her word as best she could. Run, she willed once more to the young girl and the woman who, unbeknownst to either, was the closest she had left to a mother.

[Doge]

throwing in a post here because Doge's actions are so linked with Roht's
The word, like thunder, ripped across the ground. Doge charged forwards, propelled by a duty far greater than his little form would allow one to believe. He lifted through the air, his body twisting and riding the fiery sand within the storm. His body twisted and broke, rode and flew, surrounded by the power fire and will. The little yellow beast moved as if in slow motion, riding through the air, his legs flicking and kicking as his movements echoed a beat that could only be described as justice. Doge danced. Tiny paws flicking through the air, twisting and moving with grace and humility, the traits personifying somehow within his slender yellow limbs.

The mutt flew. His small canine form didn't falter once as he rocketed towards the men and elf that sought to imprison the soul of Eiskalt. It was a scene bathed yellow and red, sand and beast combining towards their goal. I know I should go on too much like that other dramatic twat of a narrator I've been forced to share Doge's story with; but it was really something. The mutt didn't let up their either. His rhythmically gyrating form tensed for a moment, then released another “WoW”. The sandstorm shot towards the uppity elf and the puppy kicker like a tide of destruction. The movements of the dog were lost on me, but I could appreciate a good fire sandstorm when I saw one.

Doge's form slowed. The force of using two blasts of his vocal rage and channelling the ancient Doge arts so close together took their toll. His body fell from the cage of fire and sand to the ground. A dull thud, a twisted and still dog, and an avatar of justice. Doge could barely open his eyes as he hoped that he had helped saved the girl, if only a little. Memories of his departed owner danced through his mind as he had through the air moments ago. Lucy. Whatever misfortune awaited Doge as he lay on the ground could not surpassed the loss of Lucy. Not the rages of heaven and hell, nor the tinkering of man and beast would ever leave a scar like that. Every child he saved, each justice he righted brought him closer to the day that he would finally die, coated in deeds grand enough that would allow him to look into Lucy's eyes. Who's a good boy?