[Valtoria] Prey
Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2023 8:21 pm
20th of Frost, 4622
Bandaged claws to the dirt-trodden road, Arkash dragged his tail through Valtoria. Dressed in all the skin of his true form, his true nature was on display, hidden in the shadows that enveloped him.
Black flames plumed from his elongated, jagged teeth and claws and followed his movement in a trail where he passed. With naught but the light of the stars to guide him, Arkash passed by the few Genteverse peasants to prowl the streets at night undetected.
The dranoch was completely unseen in the darkness; he fused with the shadows, seamless in his camouflage, and utterly invisible to the common eye.
In no time at all, and without disturbance, Arkash passed the outskirts of the city and beheld the long road to the Fortress. Fort Alistian: the home of his once master, mentor, and now prey.
Two Halamire stood at the gate, both dressed in plate armor with halberds in hand. They stood to attention, watching the road that wound toward the entrance of the fortress. Blood-red eyes studied both men up and down and drank all the details of their reach, their stride, their side arms, the thickness of their armor, and all its kinks.
He walked straight through them without so much as a sound, and on his way past, he took hold of the guard's sidearm at the hilt and drew it from its scabbard as he continued another step.
The moment he felt its weight leave the scabbard, Arkash engaged all the inhuman strength in his limbs, lifted his sword arm, and turned on the spot to swing with demonic momentum.
In one swing, he cut through the left guard's back with a deafening clang, which redirected the edge of the knight's sword downward, and cut through the right Halamire's leg at the knee, where the plate was thinnest.
Blood spattered him in a vibrant spray of crimson, Arkash caught it all as he dug into the earthen floor with his claws and dove for a second slash on the right man's fall, and dug into the back of the Halamire's neck with their own sword, and severed his head before he hit the ground.
The left Halamire fell on his front, all feeling in his legs gone.
Arkash had struck like a bolt of lightning, faster than any mortal could comprehend. As the head of the man he'd just stood beside rolled in front of him, his lips parted to scream all too late. A bloody blade clattered beside him, and claws of burning cold wrapped his throat. "Speak one word and your head rolls like his... Understand?" Came Arkash's low, gravely voice, free of any accent to distinguish him. "Nod if you understand."
Fear, the stink of it poured from the crevices in the Halamire's armor. The salty sweetness of tears soon accompanied the pungent cocktail of human hormones, and Arkash smiled. Seconds after his command, the human had gathered enough sense to nod.
"Thank you... I was this close to changing my mind there," he admit with a tap of his burning talon against the supple flesh of the knight's jugular. "I need you to do a favor for me. Can you do that?"
The man began to sob as the discovery that his legs didn't work struck him. Arkash furrowed his brow. Quick as a whip, the Rath ripped the helm from the knight's head, pushed his face into the dirt, pulled back a balled fist, then drove it straight into the halamire's jaw.
Arkash had wrapped his hand around the sword of the knight's fallen comrade, which reinforced his knuckles. And with the knight's face flat to the floor, his jaw was to absorb the full-throttle force of Arkash's strike. A spatter of red burst at the scene, coupled with the muffled crunch of bone as the Halamire's jaw fractured in multiple places, buckled, and tore through the skin of his jawline and chin in a tattered array of torn skin.
The rath wiped the spatter from his eye with his sleeve and looked down at the gurgling human, face deformed with the crater he'd made where his jaw once rested.
"Once he fixes you, tell Raphael that I did this... That Arkash came to collect his things and hurt you," came his whisper in the knight's ear.
Wheezing and gurgling bubbled from the hole in the damaged man's face. He was concussed, severely, Arkash knew that. He exhaled forcefully from his nose, the weight of his lungs enough to ruffle the hair of the knight's still neck. The Rath appeared to think for a moment with his knee pressed into the small of the human's back, until finally, he lifted his knee from the human's severed spine and wiped the blade in the green rags that cloaked him.
There, he left the bodies for later discovery.
Freely, under the cover of night and the camouflage of his blight, Arkash made his way through the courtyard. He holstered his new sword at his hip when he arrived at the foot of the fort's tower and tested his claws on the stone. They bit with some effort, and Arkash nodded in approval before he leaped off the ground and began to climb. His claws dug into the cracks with ease and made enough grip to allow him to climb higher.
Easily, he ascended the fortress wall. He climbed with such speed and finesse that he may as well have run its height. It was only when the Rath passed by a window on his ascension that he caught a glimpse of something, stopped, blinked to himself, and hesitantly looked down at the indent of the tower's casement.
The reflection, as he'd found it, not only bore a striking resemblance to himself when he should not have made a reflection at all but was covered in the hardened shell-like crimson that was his own blood. He hadn't caught a full look at the image in his haste to climb, but he knew enough to fill in the blanks. The dripping gore of his spattered muzzle, the cover of his left eye, the jagged blades in each hand.
Arkash blinked as he stared at the crevice, then hesitantly peeled himself away from the sight and continued his climb with stiffened limbs.
Soon enough, he arrived at the window he sought, and with relative ease, opened the latch with one of the thin, sturdy, flexible quills that stemmed from the back of his hand, lifted the window, and slid inside without any issues.
There he landed in Raphael's room; the same room they'd made their deal in some year prior. Arkash curled his nose as the familiarity of the human's stink filled his lungs, and he began to scan his environment.
Raphael's bed was made, vacant, untouched for a number of days that Arkash couldn't determine. He exhaled sharply in a vain attempt to expel the stench, then trod quietly on the deep red rug of the lavish interior. Claws to the brass handles of the dresser, Arkash ripped the drawer from its chest and emptied its contents to the floor.
Nothing of his, he determined as he watched the various garments fall. An eye cast to the door of the room, where he listened for a beating heart or any sort of telltale life sign before he threw the drawer to the ground where it cracked. Out came the second drawer with similar results, thrown too onto the other drawer.
And as the final drawer came free of the chest, Arkash too threw it aside fruitless.
He moved on to the wardrobe, and inside, in seconds, found the leather garments that were stolen from him in the prior Searing. Hastily, Arkash stripped from his tunic and dressed in his old fur-lined leather garments. Quickly, he dug through the contents of the wardrobe and cast behind him anything that he didn't recognize. Sure enough, he found every piece of clothing he'd brought with him, all but his favorite piece; the cloak of raven feathers.
Arkash stepped back from the wardrobe, doors ajar, stepped on Raphael's clothes where they'd been cast, then began to scan the walls, desks, surfaces, and vanity for anything that might belong to him. The Vanity's drawer was pulled out and thrown with the others, as was the inkwell and anything else that could obscure his vision.
With nothing else to look in and his ex-master's bedroom a mess, Arkash put his foot through the door and knocked it off its hinges. He stepped through with a sword in hand and a sack fashioned from one of Raphael's doublets slung over his shoulder as the locked door hit the ground, Arkash proceeded into the Fortress proper and descended the floors. There was one other place where Raphael might have been keeping his belongings.
The lab was Arkash's next stop, on the basement floor of the fortress.
