A new leaf II
Posted: Sat Dec 05, 2020 3:33 am
6th of Frost, 120
With claws extended, Arkash rushed the gathered mobsters. They'd just launched their loaded crossbow bolts at him and were left open to a counterattack. His claws gripped the wooden floorboards of the underground headquarters as he propelled his lithe form forward. His enemies, members of the gang he'd joined just a couple of months prior, were gathered in one of the proceeding tunnels of Kan's throne room. Five of them were dead already, and Arkash had sustained a minor wound in wake of his assault, but there were still many of his ex comrades to dispose of.
Frantically, they loaded their weapons again in an effort to strike down the lizard before he could land a lethal blow. Arkash was too fast, however. Even with the cumbersome weight of his rifle, which dangled from its strap around his shoulder, he closed the gap with their panic-ridden forms. He was unarmed, but he had a forming plan for that. As he closed in, the rathor turned his trajectory a little to bolt toward the wall of the stone hallway, then leaped and kicked off the surface with one foot. The resulting force propelled him off the wall and landed him directly on the front of one of the marksmen.
"GET 'IM OFF!" The human screamed as Arkash dug in the claws of his feet and hands alike. The human thrashed and flailed in an effort to dislodge the rath while Arkash dug his claws into the man's neck. He wanted to make a sword, a full gruesome longsword fresh from the man's innards, but before he could fully sway and mold the blood, the man dropped as his legs became weak. He'd only build a pointy dagger, it wasn't enough. What little he'd shaped in the man's body was promptly ripped from the wound as Arkash forward rolled out of the way of the proceeding volley. In his hand was a gore-spattered shiv, jagged and crooked.
It wasn't enough; there were too many of them. With his back pressed to the wall, he could hear them reloading their crossbows around the corner while the one human gurgled and bled. His jaws pressed hard as he looked to the shiv in his claws, then looked up to spy the bodies that rested on the floor. The four men he'd taken down on his way in were just about dead at that point. The bodies were still warm, twitching occasionally as their brains shut down and their muscles tightened.
His mind drifted to the last bodies he'd laid eyes on; Malafor and Chitters. Just before his death, his progenitor had used some sort of blood magic on Chitter's corpse, stealing power from the exposed wound. Arkash wondered if he could somehow replicate that? The click of the crossbows left him little choice, as the men were just about ready to storm him. So, Arkash reached out his claws to the bodies that laid just a few feet ahead of him and latched his ether onto the puddles of lifeforce. With his ether as a feeler, he searched for some hidden power in the blood and found a bounty of it.
The yellow eyes he peered from widened as he found the blight within. All he had to do was harness it. Physically, he clenched his claws and pulled his arm to tense and draw toward himself while he focused his energy on the mental tug of the blight. The puddles shifted, then rippled outward and pulled toward him, as though Arkash had his own center of gravity. His eyes strained a little and a headache took his eyes before he willed his ether to leech. At once, the headache ceased, and in waves, the blood flowed toward him in a torrent.
"MAGE!" Called one of the men as they stormed the corner. Quickly, Arkash pulled the blood to coat his arm in a broad casing, then turned to face the men as he formed a sharpened spike where his fist should have been. It was huge, awkward even, but Blood was far lighter than steel; it was a manageable weight. As the men took aim, Arkash lowered to his knees and hid behind the mass of his encased arm. The crossbows clicked and slung their projectiles. Most of them stuck the broadened hard-as-steel case, but a couple nicked and skimmed his arm and thigh. Arkash hissed as he broke his defensive position, then looked to the casing. Bolts stuck from the surface, so far from where his arm would have been. In fact, the bolts were incredibly shallow. Arkash hadn't fully grasped just how hard bloodshaped materials were before that moment. Suffice to say, he was impressed by his own ability.
There was no time to stare in awe, though. As he looked to the group of panicked humans, he swayed the bloodied arm to extend into a long-bladed spike, and the bolts fell from the surface. Not a moment later, he rushed the men and ducked low at the last moment. A couple dropped their crossbows to draw their serrated blades, all too late. As Arkash rose from his charging slide, he impaled one of the men through the chest with the spike and watched in awe as the blade ripped through the man's back. The human coughed and sputtered as he gripped Arkash's arm, and Arkash watched him in turn. As much as he wished he could savor the strength he wielded, the other sensible human rushed him from the side. The other two crossbowmen dropped their weapons and drew their swords in tandem.
At once, Arkash leeched the blood from his most recent victim's chest, and formed a secondary arm casing with his pulled fist, which he raised to block the overhead strike that the human swung. The man's blade chipped the casing, but couldn't cut through. Again, the rathor hissed as he pulled the spike from the man's chest and stepped backward. The remaining three bowyers converged on him, all with their blades primed.
He took their hesitation as his advantage, and swayed the newest blood casing to form a slightly shorter blade, then tilted both blades at an angle to simulate the hold of a sword and shortsword in his wrist. Seeing the shift, one of the men loosed a deafening war cry and rushed Arkash. A second followed shortly after, accompanied by the third. They all rushed him at once, but the most important detail was the fact that one of the men had charged him sooner than the other two, even if it was just by half a second.
So, Arkash ducked and wove beneath the swing of the man's blade to appear behind him, then cut out the tendons in the man's knees from behind with a forced curl of his torso and a well-aimed swing of his blade. The man fell to his knees as the other two rushed Arkash from his side, but he couldn't change directions as quickly with the bulky additions to his forearms. So, he lifted his arm to block the strike, but the human beyond was a heavy hitter. He knocked Arkash's comparably weak arm downward, then dove to thrust at the rathor's neck while the other moved to flank him in a pincer-like formation.
Again, Arkash pulled his body aside to evade the thrust of the blade, and the cold steel slid over his upper chest in a shallow cut. Arkash hissed. He didn't have the moment to stab the man with his weighted arms, so he again cast sway on those arms of his, and his headache returned. The casings turned to their liquid state and restored Arkash's mobility as the blood splashed the floor. With his teeth bared, Arkash ducked and gripped the planks beneath the layer of lifeforce to propel his body in a forward-roll. Deftly, he evaded the pincer and shot himself to stand against the stone wall of the facility. Just a second after he turned to face the two men, who'd otherwise been at his back, he found both their swords swinging at him.
The rath was far too fast though, and swiftly evaded their strikes with a bolt to the left, then a kick off the ground with saw him jump, then roll across the blood-stained floor to collect the shortsword and dagger he'd bloodshaped earlier. Thick red ran down his front as it dripped down his back from his crouched position. The men turned to face him while Arkash considered his next move. His head was starting to hurt, his body felt sluggish. Was he overstepping? He couldn't know for sure, so he elected to stay his magic for the remainder of the fight.
His Stamina suffered from all the rolling, dodging, and swinging, but he was still in the fight. Obviously, the last two humans were a lot more skilled and coordinated than the men he'd cut down so far. They posed a problem for the rath, but only a little, for he was sure he outmatched them in skill and wit alike. All they had on him was their number of hands, which wasn't enough. With both his swords at the ready, he openly approached the two...
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