Ajax: Damsel in Distress pt II

[Hakon]

Hakon wasn't winning, but he was holding his own. The Galvanized bolts had hit enough of their targets that the woman and the big man were too distracted to really harry him, which was vital, The reprieve had also given him time to organize himself and come up with a strategy, such as it was. It was loose, but he knew he had to bring down the bear while keeping the woman too distracted to make his day worse. As an Engraver who had hopefully already summoned her only nearby undead minion, he needed her wasting her nightorch's reserve on keeping the bear up so that when he brought it down, she did not have too much left to work with.

The way she was caring for the big guy and the little guy made him feel that it was unlikely she'd use them as an emergency supply of ether by utilizing Wither. He was thankful he'd gotten Ajax out of touch range, though, because he would have been a living battery for her to drain if her reserves were depleted. He was also glad the big guy was off the board, because he was preternaturally strong. Hakon normally did not shy away from getting close to engage with his quarry, but given how strong the big one was, it seemed better to stay out of range. If he could turn a table to kindling with a single hit, he could likely knock the head off of Hakon's shoulders without any real effort.

That left the little one with the leathery looking skin. Hakon wasn't sure what to make of him yet. Presumably the skin meant he had a sort of permanent armor to him. Maybe it would reduce the damage of some things more than others. He was unsure if the Galvanized bolts had not affected the little one over much or if they had simply not connected with him. He made a tough target hidden as he was behind the big one, and Hakon was not the best shot.

His kite shield was doing a decent job of guarding him from the worst of the bear's claws and teeth, but he was bleeding from a wound in his shoulder and a lucky swipe the bear had gotten on his leg when he'd gotten in close to bash its head with his mace. It hadn't been worth it. He got in close again and got his mace stuck in some rotting bear sinew when he went in for a blow to its powerful neck. It bellowed at him and tried to bite him, blocked only his shield and then knocked under its chin by the edge of it, forcing it back.

For a conventional warrior, being without his weapon would be disastrous, but the mace wasn't even real, so Hakon just dismissed it from existence and used the bear's distraction to craft a bolt in its place. Even he couldn't miss tossing it at the thing's head at such close range.

Or so he thought.

The little one used his distraction to rush between him and Ajax and then somehow boarded him like a pirate invading a merchant vessel in the sort of novels Hakon had enjoyed as a boy. Then he buried his surprisingly sharp jaws in Hakon's shoulder. Hakon could feel the wretch's teeth tunneling into his flesh. He let out a barbaric bellow and unleashed the bolt on the bear at the wrong angle. Instead of hitting the unfortunate creature right where the rotting head met the neck, it hit where the neck hit the shoulders. Fortunately, it seemed to have compromised its spine, as it stiffened and its movements slowed before grinding to a halt other than the twitching, ravenous head which still snarled and snapped at him.

He had no time to celebrate, however. He needed to get the miscreant off of his back or he had a feeling he would be worn down to the bone.

It was tempting to think that he could blast the wretch off of his back, but if that were the case, the creature would not have gotten this close. So instead, he dismissed his kite shield, leaving him wholly open and fell backwards, landing bodily on the leathery man treating his shoulder like a harvest festival feast. It still hurt like nothing else, but at least he'd made him stop chewing, and the muffled sound he heard when he did so indicated that he hadn't enjoyed it.

With the little guy's jaws disengaged and a bit stunned on the floor, Hakon spun so that he was facing the wretch, his bloody maw still dotted with pieces of Hakon's flesh.

"No more," was all he said as he brought his Branded arm up to the wretche's open mouth and conjured a throwing star into it. He doubted the man was armored on the inside, too, and he was willing to bet that a small amount of pain would incapacitate him as he, like many armored creatures, did not experience pain often. If it didn't shred the man's jaw as it would a normal opponent, it would hopefully at least prevent further bites.

He staggered to his feet, backing up a few paces out of range of the frenzied bear and the leathery creature still in a heap on the floor.

"We'll get through this, lad," he said to Ajax. It was as much for him as it was for the captive.

[Andros]

This was the moment Alecto had feared. Her Lagoniko was wounded, perhaps mortally. Lukos was in danger, still injured himself. She was in danger too, for that matter. But this was also a moment she’d practiced for many times.

Alecto lived in fear. Lagoniko knew it, even if Lukos was blissfully ignorant. Fear that one day the Scarlet Watch would corner them, that the civil authorities would track them down, or that a target might prove stronger or better prepared than anticipated. In her mind's eye she saw her sons set on by a mob of savage knights, herself torn apart for sunderscrap.

No. It couldn’t be allowed to happen. Not when this big oaf had clearly blundered in without even knowing who they were. She would sacrifice everything she could to keep her brood safe and destroy the enemy. She would do what she had practiced. Letting out a wail that would have broken window panes if her hovel were so equipped, she turned and grabbed her nighttorch out of the cupboard.

There wasn’t much vitescence left. She’d had to use so much healing herself and Lukos and animating the bear. Now she needed more to heal Lagoniko - on death’s doorstep - and there was only one way to get it. But first, she used what was left to give the bear a final jolt of energy, just enough to distract the attacker for a few seconds and, if she were lucky, to do a little damage.

As the bear lumbered towards its target, Alecto put a hand on Lukos’ shoulder, holding the nighttorch in the other. “Stay still, darling,” she said with a gentleness she rarely evinced.

Then she began to drain the vitescence out of him, passing it into her nighttorch and then into Lagoniko across the room. Was it her imagination or could she really see the blue light emanating from the torch and drifting off towards her son?

She focused on the most essential. Lagoniko’s carotid artery had mercifully been missed, but his tongue was nearly severed and the tendons that connected his jawbone to his skull was cut on one side. The edge of the throwing star had also punctured his palette though it didn’t reach the brain. He was bleeding freely, both internally and externally.

With increasing distress, Alecto realized this might be too much for her even as she worked. At best, she could stabilize her son and hope to use her ordinary necromancy to repair him later. Perhaps she could take some pieces of the mage and graft them on? Lagoniko would like that. Grafting is, after all, a kind of more durable cannibalism. Your victim doesn’t simply give you energy and get shit out into a latrine, but remains a part of you for life. She laughed loudly at the thought, a low, growling laugh that made Ajax shiver and even set Lukos on edge.

Taking as much as she could safely from Lukos, she did what she could. She stopped the bleeding from inside of Lagoniko’s mouth and softened the pain that was making him scream piteously. The tongue was a lost cause - she’d have to get him a new one if he survived.

That was it. She couldn’t drain any more vitescence from Lukos without risking his life. She felt weak, and she knew Lukos felt weaker. He leaned hard against the wall. Hopefully even a weakened Lukos could still defend himself.

Alecto was losing touch with reality. She felt deep sorrow for her sons, and simultaneously an intense, overpowering rage at the man who had invaded their home and attacked her family. Forgetting Ajax, she convinced herself it was unprovoked and that he was some kind of criminal, probably a thief or a rapist. She wanted to hurt him, and there was only one way to do it. She had to touch him, to use her wither against him. If she could, not only would he grow weaker and decay, but she could use his own vitescence against him. She opened her black wings and beat them, launching herself up to the low ceiling and then at the enemy, hoping to startle him and get within touching distance.

[Hakon]

He hadn't thought that she would steal from her own compatriots with Wither. For an instant, he cursed his optimism, then stopped. He'd been right that it was not her go-to move. She'd drained almost all of the vitescence available to her before she touched the big one and Withered him to heal the little one. She cared about them, she was just willing to make utilitarian decisions to try and save the little guy from bleeding out. They really operated a bit like a family, almost.

He wondered if they had been normal and loving at one point before being corrupted by magic, or if they'd always been sick and the woman had become an Engraver to further her twisted desires. While thinking about this, he returned his mace to his hands and ended the the menace of the bear by severing its spinal cord completely. The artificial light in its eyes, mad and angry from the Agony inflicted upon it by the rival Engraver, went out.

No sooner had he done so then he heard a sound of rushing wind. He didn't have time to look, but he knew what it was without turning his head: no point in the woman having wings if she didn't use them. He conjured his kite shield because he surmised what she was after. She wanted to get in touch range of him or Ajax and drain them dry. No sooner was it on his arm than she hit it with a loud thunk, like a bird hitting a window. Due to their relative size and weight difference, he was knocked back a bit, but fine. She, meanwhile, was knocked back a good deal more, as she hadn't been expecting to collide with a metal shield.

For the first time in this entire conflict, he grinned at her. "Big mistake, wretch."

She was down on the ground and with a few rapid strides to close the gap between them she was too close for him to miss. He swung his mace at her, aiming for the delicate membrane where the wings met her back.

[Andros]

Ajax hadn’t stopped being frightened for even a moment since he was bonked on the head by Lukos. The big mage’s arrival gave him a bit of hope, but even after he got off the table he still cowered, naked and shaking with fear behind his rescuer as the battle seesawed. His hope swelled when Lukos and Alecto were both wounded, but the awful, undead bear made him swoon with terror.

He was sure he was about to die when he was knocked to the floor and that disgusting cannibal jumped on his rescuers back. Then within just a few seconds the situation had completely turned around. Lagoniko was drowning in his own blood while his mother tried to save him, then suddenly Hakon had smashed her with a mace and she was prone on the floor. And the bear was dead. Again. At least for now.

Ajax felt his fingers tingling. He had been clenching his fists so hard and for so long that they’d fallen asleep and now, as hope returned, he relaxed them. Wanting to help and to get revenge he walked over to Alecto, who’d cut him open more times than he could count, all for no reason. He had the idea of smashing her skull with the fireplace poker but he knew he didn’t have it in him to kill, even someone he hated so deeply.

Instead he jabbed the poker into the spot where she’d been struck, breaking the skin and eliciting a pained groan out of the injured woman.

“Lagoniko is dying and Lukos is next, you vicious witch. I hope he sunders you into a thousand pieces.”

[Andros]

The last time Alecto felt this helpless was the last time her husband beat her, just before she had him killed for his crimes. Her life was geared towards protecting her children and remaining free and in charge of her family’s fate. She robbed and killed to keep them safe and independent.

And now she was wounded on the floor, one son seriously injured and the other seriously weakened. She could tell her spinal cord was severed even if she hadn’t used her abilities - her lower body wouldn’t move. The only thing she could do was try to pull herself over to her boys with her arms, crawling slowly in the hope that they could at least die together.

Then suddenly she felt a piercing pain in her back and heard Ajax’s mocking voice. The tables had been turned. Lukos might still save them, but the pretty boy was probably right. Alecto started to weep.

"Please, sunder me but leave them alone. They’re just boys,” she said about two murderers, rapists, and cannibals each pushing their hundredth birthday. “Don’t hurt them, she begged.”

Lukos, who had slumped down to the floor, heard his mother’s desperation and tried to take action. With effort, he lumbered to his feet.

“Mama, I’m ok. I’ll kill him. I’ll kill them both. We’ll make Lagoniko’s favorite tonight.”

Lagoniko groaned at this, still unable to speak with his tongue nearly cut off. He knew the end was at hand and wanted to say good bye to his mother and brother. Lukos might be in denial but he wasn't. Ajax was right. The bleeding his mother had staunched had started up again and he felt it fill his mouth. All all he could do was moan into the dirt floor of his home as he faced down death.

[Hakon]

Hakon looked Alecto square in the eyes when she made her request.

While he wasn't above smirking or gloating, he didn't this time. Instead, he looked at her to show her he had heard her, and responded: "I will show them the same mercy you've shown everyone else you kidnapped."

Then he brought the butt of his mace down on her head, a hard tap to render her unconscious. There had been more than enough shenanigans and distractions from her since he'd entered the cabin; he needed her off the board while he finished off "the boys," as she'd called them.

With that done, he turned to the little one, still bleeding out of his mouth with a severity that Hakon was decently sure meant he did not have long to live. Despite being an Engraver, he lacked Alecto's facility with necromancy, and didn't know enough about medicine or anatomy to be certain, but it did not look encouraging. So he stood over the little one, now choking on his own blood instead of Hakon's flesh, and Galvanized a bolt right into his open mouth. It was hard to be menaced by a vicious cannibal with needles for teeth when he no longer had a head.

Which left the big one. Hakon was loathe to get close but he was starting to feel tired from using so much ether in such rapid succession. Normally, he stuck to making his weapons appear and disappear, with maybe some light healing at the end of a battle with the help of his nighttorch. Galvanic bolts were not easy to form and fling. Between that and the blood loss from the wound on his back that was still freely bleeding, he was feeling woozy and a little nauseated. In all likelihood, the heat of battle was keeping him going. If he let it drag on for too long, he would start to feel his wounds. He had to end it quickly.

So he dismissed his weapons, and started tossing throwing stars at the big guy, hoping to hit places like his neck or the big vein in his thigh. It wasn't as effective, but he knew he didn't have too many more bolts in him.

"We finish this," he said to the oaf.

[Andros]

A loud whoop left Ajax’s mouth before he could even think about it. Lagoniko, who’d planned to eat him, was dead. His head just…gone. The rescuer had some scary, awe-inspiring magic up his sleeve. Ajax was relieved and thrilled. He was really starting to believe he’d live to see the another day. He wanted to smash at the body with the fireplace poker but he didn’t have the nerve, so he just stood by and kept jabbing it into mommy, who was dead or unconscious and not likely to be flying any time soon.

With Lagoniko dead and Alecto out of commission, that left only Lukos. Ajax hoped the stranger didn’t underestimate him. He was well aware of the beast’s prodigious strength. His head still hurt from when Lukos had knocked him unconscious. But the mage seemed very capable. He’d outwitted the witch, killed the smarter of the two boys, and disposed of the horrible undead bear monster. It was really incredible, Ajax thought. And the stranger looked hot doing it, too.

The rescuer seemed ready for combat as he faced Lukos. Hopefully he had some more magicp prepared. Lukos, meanwhile, had gotten off the floor. He swayed slightly, his abilities clearly diminished, but righted himself and glared at Ajax.His face bright red and tear-stained, he roared at the mage. Ajax could feel the vibration through the floor.

“You killed my brother! I am going to break every bone in your body, then I’ll pop your head like a cherry.” He looked at Ajax. “Then yours, you little bastard. You’re still my dinner. ”

Well, so much for Ajax feeling confident. He expected Lukos to rush the rescuer but it didn’t happen. Ignoring the throwing stars launched at him and bleeding freely from several wounds, he grabbed the cooking pot off the hearth and threw it at the mage, knocking him on his back. Then he walked over at his own slow pace, picked up an enormous booted foot, and stomped hard on the mage’s left leg. Ajax could hear the bone crack from across the room.

Hope floated away and flew out the chimney. Lukos was about to carry out his threat and Ajax was next. Fortunately, he was closer to the door than his enemy. Not wasting a moment, he took the few steps needed and shoved it open. But before ran outside and into the woods like a coward (which he acknowledged to be a correct assessment of his character), he decided to help his rescuer. He couldn’t do much, but he did still have the fireplace poker.

Ajax wasn’t cut out to be a military man. Still, he had to take part in Upper Village’s montly military drills since he turned 12 and came of age. He knew how to march, how to fight with a sword, and, crucially, how to throw a spear.

The fireplace poker was a heavy iron rod the length of Ajax’s leg. At the end was a sharp tip and a hook coming out the side. It could do some damage if Ajax launched it just right. Which he did. Directly at Lukos’ face while the monster was distracted by something the rescuer was saying.

It should have landed. It should have saved the day. But unfortunately Lukos still had his reflexes. He dodged to the left and grabbed the iron rod out of thin air. Grinning, he picked it up and jabbed it right through the mage’s leg, the one he’d already broken, pinning him to the ground.

That was enough for Ajax. He ran right out the door. Not far. He hid behind a bush within sight of the hut. He was confident he could still outrun Lukos if he won the fight. If the stranger won, Ajax wanted to be there to help him out. It was the least he could do. And there was a lot of loot available in that hovel, not to mention his clothing and all his stuff.

[Hakon]

Hakon was having a difficult time staying upright. He was still bleeding copiously from his back, which meant the wound was too deep to set. He was feeling dizzier and weaker by the second and though he brought his kite shield back to try to block the cooking pot, he didn't raise his arm in time. The dizziness and weakness slowed his reflexes, and it connected with his head with a solid thunk. Hakon saw stars and was knocked on his ass, just as he'd done to Alecto earlier.

He knew he had to get up. He could hear Lukos getting ponderously closer, and he tried, but his nerves were scrambled. His dizziness had worsened with the blow to the head, and instead of being able to stand up, the best he could manage was ineffectually scrambling backwards. Lukos' long stride more than made up any distance gained between them.

It was around the time that Lukos stomped on his leg, shattering the bones in his shin and ankle, that Hakon realized he'd messed up. The normally stoic warrior let out an involuntary cry of pain. He knew he could heal it, later, but first he had to focus, and quickly.

His attempts to focus failed, however. He couldn't make a bolt in these conditions, and that's what he needed. Any weapon at close range with Lukos wouldn't help him much. There was no contest between their relative strengths, and a melee duel would have ended badly even if he could stand, which he couldn't. He didn't see Ajax throw the poker, but he saw Lukos catch it, then look down at him with a diabolical smile on his face.

"D-don't," he said pathetically before Lukos shoved the poker into his broken shin pinning him to the floor. The pain of it was unlike anything Hakon had ever experienced: white scorched his vision and he let out a scream that rivaled Ajax's earlier that afternoon.

It was also a huge mistake, of course.

"Pain," he growled out, "brings clarity."

He tapped into his etheric reserves and pulled up another etheric bolt. Probably his last, one way or the other. As with Lagunikos, he was not going to miss at such close range. He scaled the bolt up to correspond to his foe's bulky frame, then unleashed it dead center in Lukos' chest.

It connected with a loud crack.

The oaf stopped advancing, and looked down at the hole where his torso had been, before falling forward, narrowly missing falling onto Hakon. For his part, he breathed a sigh of relief, and then a wave of dizziness hit him. He breathed out through clenched teeth and then connected to his nighttorch and began channeling ether as fast as he could. Counterintuitively, he did not choose his leg. Not yet. He knew that if he pulled the poker from his leg, he might actually pass out from the pain, and if that happened, he was done for. He'd bleed out and die.

So instead, he healed the wound in his back, clumsily pushing vitescence at the wound until he didn't feel more blood trickling down the back of his soaked and soiled shirt, pausing only briefly to Engulf Lukos' soul into his torch so that he had enough energy to accomplish the task. He was still pinned to the floor by a metal rod through his shattered leg, his head still hurt like hell and he still couldn't see straight, but he wasn't bleeding any longer, and that was something.

He got his nightorch out of its pouch and rang its little bell once more to encourage Lagunikos' soul to leave its body. As always, his torch ate the soul available to it with a ferocity that surprised and disturbed him. He knew it was part of him, technically, but he did not feel such a tremendous hunger inside. He set the thought from his mind and ensured the wound in his back was as good as he could make before healing what was likely a concussion in his head.

The downside of doing so was there was now nothing to distract him from the continual pain of his mangled leg with a fireplace poker in it. Pinned as he was, getting it out of his body was going to be a struggle. With gritted teeth, he did something he was loathe to usually do and asked for help.

"Lad? Are you out there? I could use your help, if so!"

[Andros]

Somehow Ajax knew that the loud crash he heard from inside the hut was Lukos falling to the ground. And he knew that if Lukos was on the ground, he was dead or would be son He couldn’t imagine how the intruder had done it, but he had faith in him. Enough faith that even before the mage called to him, he had already inched his way back to the door and was building up the courage to peek inside.

When he was called, he pushed it open. The smell hit him even before his eyes could readjust to the dim lighting. Corpses, blood, viscera, and an odd smell he couldn’t identify, like lightning after a storm. The odor was bad enough but the sight made him gag. Two horribly mangled corpses on the ground, one missing a head, the other missing a huge chunk of its chest. Nobody deserved it more, and Ajax was relieved to know the two monsters were dead, but that didn’t make the sight any less awful.

The stranger didn’t look much better off. His leg was a bloody, mangled mess and his foot seemed to be pointing in the wrong direction. Seeing it made Ajax suddenly dizzy and he clung to the door for support. But he knew he had to help. After what this hero had done for him, he couldn’t run away and leave him to die like that, even if every muscle in his body wanted to get out the door and never think about this again.

So he forced himself to walk into the house, one step at a time, trying not to look at anything horrible. He was in a daze, but focusing on the task at hand kept his feelings at bay. He needed them under control until the job was done.

First, he grabbed a blanket off the bed - dirty but it would serve as a tourniquet. He ripped it into pieces as quickly as he could and brought them over to where the injured man was lying. Then he grabbed a pile of Alecto’s necromancy supplies off of a cabinet. He didn’t know what they were, but maybe the mage could make some use of them.

Finally, he made his way to the stranger's side, taking care to step directly on Alecto’s wound as he walked across the room. The smell here was overwhelming, between the mage’s wound and the two dead cannibals at his side. Ajax felt lightheaded again, but waited for it to pass.

“I’m going to take out the poker and tie off the wound. This is going to hurt. Take a deep breath”

Then he grasped the end and started to pull, continuing to talk to distract the mage from his pain.

“I’m Ajax, son of Poimen. You saved me. Thank you.”

[Hakon]

Hakon was relieved to see someone who was not trying to kill him. He was lucky the boy had not strayed too far.

"Lad -- Ajax -- thank you. I was sent to rescue you by," Hakon paused to let out a pained exhalation as his leg throbbed, "by a high-ranking friend of yours. You left your lute behind, and he was worried for you. That may have saved you," he managed to get out from between gritted teeth.

He nodded to Ajax as the other man stood over him and grabbed the poker. Lukos had embedded the tip of it several inches into the packed earth floor. He was lucky it did not have a flared head, or Ajax might have been too weak to pull it out. It was still going to be agonizing going out, however. He looked at Ajax and nodded to him. He grabbed a scrap of the proffered tourniquet and twisted it up.

"Do it," he said to Ajax, and bit down on the rag.

It was exponentially worse going out than in. Hakon prided himself on being stoic but he wailed, even through the rag, and tears ran down his face as the boy did his best to extract the fireplace poker from his leg. He was sure that in reality Ajax was going quickly and that it was over in seconds, but time stretched out and it felt like an eternity. No sooner than it had been finished but he felt the bottom of his leg getting freshly wet with blood. Nothing seemed to be spurting, at least, so that was good. Hakon immediately started channeling his own nightorch's reserves to the wounds, focusing on stopping the bleeding so that he didn't pass out. A white line formed from his torch to his knee as he healed himself.

After a few minutes of steady work, he was satisfied. His leg was still broken in several places and his foot was at the wrong angle, but he was no longer in imminent danger of death. It had only taken all of his nightorch's reserves and two extra souls to keep Hakon's soul from passing on. Fortunately, there was still one more soul to be reaped in the cabin.

"I'm Hakon," he said, offering a grateful smile to the man he was supposed to rescue. "Thank you for coming to my aid. I'm not sure I could have removed the poker myself without your help. If you don't mind, there's one more thing I could use some assistance with."

He spared a glance for Alecto, still quite unconscious on the floor, pieces of her mangled wings on the floor nearby. She was still breathing, at least. He'd get his Warden the desired sunderscrap after all. He smiled grimly.

"I wish to finish what I started. Outside, there's a walnut tree I was in before I heard your cry for help. In the tree is a small box. Please bring it to me. Meanwhile, I will do my best to drag myself over to the rogue who hurt you. What happens next will be a bit vicious, lad," Hakon said with apparently no appreciation of the irony of saying that after a gory battle that had happened in front of the musician. "You do not need to watch if you do not wish to. But I will end her as I ended your other captors, and you will be safe. I promise."