1st of Glade, 4622
He hadn’t stopped.
It was ten minutes into the fight, and Arkash had yet to stop moving for anything at all. He flowed like water around the attempted swipes and swings of his adversaries, and continually evaded deafening blasts of gunfire as they rained.
Whenever his rifle was ready, he took aim and fired until his last round left the chamber, and shortly after, abandoned the weapon. There was no time to reload given the weapon’s complex loading mechanism, and Arkash didn’t carry any ammunition on his form. Both the sharpshooters that stood at the top of the complex had been eliminated, at the very least, which left Arkash to deal with the ground grunts by the blade.
He swept into the cover of a tent and closed the gap with a middle-aged red-skinned Orkhai, who immediately dropped his gun and drew his knife in a wide-arched swipe. With his free hand, Arkash caught the Ork’s forearm, then used the man’s weight as an anchor to swing himself around as another volley of gunshots rained on him in his moment of decreased momentum.
As he dragged the Ork’s arm with the pivot of his direction, he took note as a couple of bullets landed a jolt on the red-skinned Ork’s body, and the sharp bite of lead pierced the scales of his arm. Evidently, he wasn’t fast enough to completely evade every gunshot, and by chance, one of them had caught him.
His arm functioned still, so he didn’t pause to check the extent of the injury as he ran the red-skinned man through with his blood sword, lifted him off the ground an inch with the force of the strike, then ripped his blade clean in time to see the aim of unfired rifles in his direction. Arkash’s eyes widened; they’d held out their shots for when he resurfaced.
The enemy was learning.
Though he dived for the tarp of the tent, he felt another bullet rip through his stomach. His teeth bared as he hit the sand, and he at once felt behind himself for an exit wound… There was none. The bullet was still in him somewhere.
Intense burning agony overcame him as panic set in. With his burning claws, he quickly dug into his own guts and cried out through his bared teeth. The flames were cold in his flesh, but he soon found the solid and ripped it from its hiding place with a few scraps of his own entrails. Pain unbearable crashed through his form as he inspected his dripping claws, then shook his head as he kicked off the ground and once again fell to the sand.
He found he didn’t have the strength to stand right; his abdominal muscles were injured in the retrieval of the bullet.
Eyes wide through his healing, Arkash crawled to the tent as more yelling and the barking of orders rang out. Arkash shut his eyes as the pain began to withdraw and lighten through his recovery, but it wasn’t fast enough.
“Over here!” called the voice of a woman. As Arkash rolled over to check, he found the features of an elven woman, illuminated by the flames of her jagged sword. Arkash widened his eyes again. How was such a thing possible? How could a sword come to burn?
She dove at him, sword poised to slash straight through. As Arkash threw his legs over his head, he felt the muscles in his stomach tear and rip even further. He hadn’t healed anywhere near enough to function fully, but he’d landed in a more favorable position. It was as he rose to his knees that his opponent clashed with his black blade, and the flames began to eat through the body as the solidified fluid was brought to boil.
The press of his brows yielded to shock as her weapon had not only survived the clash with his, but began to destroy it. Panicked, he lifted his blade a little and let it lean back in an effort to guide her strike overhead. In the move, she cut through his sword entirely, but the flames extinguished in that exact instant. With his broken sword, he threw his weight forward and thrust through the woman’s thigh as he fell. A shriek of pain bellowed from her opened mouth as her femoral arteries were severed, and she wobbled as she turned to face the Rathor. Arkash held his stomach as the flesh continued to close and the muscle rebuilt. Meanwhile, his opponent made the foolish decision to rip the blade from her thigh, then dropped it as the cascade of red began to pour down her leg. “…What have you done…?” She asked, eyes wide as her shaky hands began to try and squeeze the wound shut to no avail. The blood kept pouring. “Shoot here!” She called at the top of her lungs as she fell to her knees.
Arkash’s eyes widened as he fell flush to the floor as a spray of bullets ripped through the tarp barricade he’d hidden behind he stayed there for a moment, breathing through the tremendous agony in his body as the elf hit the ground behind him.
Silence filled the atmosphere above the crackling sound of fire, and Arkash laid utterly still. Did they think they’d won? His stomach was almost fully repaired, and the less he moved around, the quicker it would be. So, he resolved to remain in one spot as long as he could.
In that silence, various yells and calls echoed beyond the torn up tarp, the organization and direction of men. Footsteps in the sand were heard a little later, and Arkash held still as they approached. “We got ‘im!” cried a voice just meters ahead of him on the land.
“Wot about Ray?!” Called another voice.
“…We got ‘er too, looks like,” returned the first voice, that of a younger man.
“Double tap!” came another voice as Arkash’s eyes widened. He heard it all, the click of the flintlock’s hammer the shift of clothes as the man took aim at his laying body. A flex of his claws saw him grip the sand, and in an act of desperation, he reached out to the late Ray’s blood and pulled. At once, a spear of hardened blood and sand shot out, flew the short distance, and punctured his would-be executioner’s heart.
At the sound, Arkash’s head lifted in shock, and he peered at the boy with the jagged spear in his chest. The first thoughts to cross his mind were awe and amazement. His magic, Blood Magic, had returned? The next thought to cross his mind was aim of the boy’s gun, which he quickly pushed to the ground to throw himself out of the way. Simultaneously, the skewered human squeezed the trigger, and fired off a blast in the sand that Arkash had laid upon. The recoil of the rifle’s explosion was evidently enough to knock the staggered, breathless human off his feet, so Arkash Shot up, swept in, and grabbed the rifleman by the back of the head and guided him softly to the sand. In the same motion, he pushed the spear even deeper into the trap of the younger man’s ribcage and reveled in the sound of straining bones.
The angle of the spears entry and undoubtedly severed the rifleman’s lungs, which explained the lack of breath or gurgling as he withdrew to silence, and shut his eyes for the last time.
Just as soon as the last of the rifleman’s life faded, a voice called out in his direction. “All good?” They asked, voice laden with concern.
Quietly, Arkash rose again and peered through one of the bullet holes to spy the opposition, where they convened at the center, near the fire. One of them had even taken the liberty of collecting his supposed Relic, the rifle that summoned the power of the sky and brought lightning down on his foes. Rage filled the crimson depths of his eye. The rifle was his to wield, and his alone. Who was the human to claim his weapon?
With a deep breath, Arkash prepared his ether and flit his eyes about the various corpses of his foes where they laid. The blood that painted the sand. Then, with a squeeze of his fist, he let loose a volley of blood spears from all directions, of all shapes and sizes. They came from the rooftop of the facility, their tents, the ground behind Arkash, and the grounds all around them. Dozens at once skewered and ran through the opposition, crushing and impaling them in a sudden, disastrous explosion of gore. Cries of anguish and pain echoed as the bodies began to fall. Others clung to life, propped by their weapons while massive streaks of red jut from their demolished bodies.
Defeated cries of despair followed as those that weren’t instantly killed began to drop in piles where they stood. With a deep breath, Arkash rose to his feet and brushed off his ragged green tunic before he checked the injuries to his stomach and arm. His scales were completely restored over his stomach with minor scarring to show for it, and it seemed the muscles of his arm had long since ejected the bullet, as the whole thing was completely intact by the time he’d gotten around to checking the wound.
Finally, he took a knee at Ray’s side, the elf that wielded the flaming sword, and collected her weapon. Violet streaks ran through cracks in the tempered metalwork of the blade, no doubt the doing of his own craftsmanship. Even so, wielding such a weapon would have been nice.
He hadn’t stopped.
It was ten minutes into the fight, and Arkash had yet to stop moving for anything at all. He flowed like water around the attempted swipes and swings of his adversaries, and continually evaded deafening blasts of gunfire as they rained.
Whenever his rifle was ready, he took aim and fired until his last round left the chamber, and shortly after, abandoned the weapon. There was no time to reload given the weapon’s complex loading mechanism, and Arkash didn’t carry any ammunition on his form. Both the sharpshooters that stood at the top of the complex had been eliminated, at the very least, which left Arkash to deal with the ground grunts by the blade.
He swept into the cover of a tent and closed the gap with a middle-aged red-skinned Orkhai, who immediately dropped his gun and drew his knife in a wide-arched swipe. With his free hand, Arkash caught the Ork’s forearm, then used the man’s weight as an anchor to swing himself around as another volley of gunshots rained on him in his moment of decreased momentum.
As he dragged the Ork’s arm with the pivot of his direction, he took note as a couple of bullets landed a jolt on the red-skinned Ork’s body, and the sharp bite of lead pierced the scales of his arm. Evidently, he wasn’t fast enough to completely evade every gunshot, and by chance, one of them had caught him.
His arm functioned still, so he didn’t pause to check the extent of the injury as he ran the red-skinned man through with his blood sword, lifted him off the ground an inch with the force of the strike, then ripped his blade clean in time to see the aim of unfired rifles in his direction. Arkash’s eyes widened; they’d held out their shots for when he resurfaced.
The enemy was learning.
Though he dived for the tarp of the tent, he felt another bullet rip through his stomach. His teeth bared as he hit the sand, and he at once felt behind himself for an exit wound… There was none. The bullet was still in him somewhere.
Intense burning agony overcame him as panic set in. With his burning claws, he quickly dug into his own guts and cried out through his bared teeth. The flames were cold in his flesh, but he soon found the solid and ripped it from its hiding place with a few scraps of his own entrails. Pain unbearable crashed through his form as he inspected his dripping claws, then shook his head as he kicked off the ground and once again fell to the sand.
He found he didn’t have the strength to stand right; his abdominal muscles were injured in the retrieval of the bullet.
Eyes wide through his healing, Arkash crawled to the tent as more yelling and the barking of orders rang out. Arkash shut his eyes as the pain began to withdraw and lighten through his recovery, but it wasn’t fast enough.
“Over here!” called the voice of a woman. As Arkash rolled over to check, he found the features of an elven woman, illuminated by the flames of her jagged sword. Arkash widened his eyes again. How was such a thing possible? How could a sword come to burn?
She dove at him, sword poised to slash straight through. As Arkash threw his legs over his head, he felt the muscles in his stomach tear and rip even further. He hadn’t healed anywhere near enough to function fully, but he’d landed in a more favorable position. It was as he rose to his knees that his opponent clashed with his black blade, and the flames began to eat through the body as the solidified fluid was brought to boil.
The press of his brows yielded to shock as her weapon had not only survived the clash with his, but began to destroy it. Panicked, he lifted his blade a little and let it lean back in an effort to guide her strike overhead. In the move, she cut through his sword entirely, but the flames extinguished in that exact instant. With his broken sword, he threw his weight forward and thrust through the woman’s thigh as he fell. A shriek of pain bellowed from her opened mouth as her femoral arteries were severed, and she wobbled as she turned to face the Rathor. Arkash held his stomach as the flesh continued to close and the muscle rebuilt. Meanwhile, his opponent made the foolish decision to rip the blade from her thigh, then dropped it as the cascade of red began to pour down her leg. “…What have you done…?” She asked, eyes wide as her shaky hands began to try and squeeze the wound shut to no avail. The blood kept pouring. “Shoot here!” She called at the top of her lungs as she fell to her knees.
Arkash’s eyes widened as he fell flush to the floor as a spray of bullets ripped through the tarp barricade he’d hidden behind he stayed there for a moment, breathing through the tremendous agony in his body as the elf hit the ground behind him.
Silence filled the atmosphere above the crackling sound of fire, and Arkash laid utterly still. Did they think they’d won? His stomach was almost fully repaired, and the less he moved around, the quicker it would be. So, he resolved to remain in one spot as long as he could.
In that silence, various yells and calls echoed beyond the torn up tarp, the organization and direction of men. Footsteps in the sand were heard a little later, and Arkash held still as they approached. “We got ‘im!” cried a voice just meters ahead of him on the land.
“Wot about Ray?!” Called another voice.
“…We got ‘er too, looks like,” returned the first voice, that of a younger man.
“Double tap!” came another voice as Arkash’s eyes widened. He heard it all, the click of the flintlock’s hammer the shift of clothes as the man took aim at his laying body. A flex of his claws saw him grip the sand, and in an act of desperation, he reached out to the late Ray’s blood and pulled. At once, a spear of hardened blood and sand shot out, flew the short distance, and punctured his would-be executioner’s heart.
At the sound, Arkash’s head lifted in shock, and he peered at the boy with the jagged spear in his chest. The first thoughts to cross his mind were awe and amazement. His magic, Blood Magic, had returned? The next thought to cross his mind was aim of the boy’s gun, which he quickly pushed to the ground to throw himself out of the way. Simultaneously, the skewered human squeezed the trigger, and fired off a blast in the sand that Arkash had laid upon. The recoil of the rifle’s explosion was evidently enough to knock the staggered, breathless human off his feet, so Arkash Shot up, swept in, and grabbed the rifleman by the back of the head and guided him softly to the sand. In the same motion, he pushed the spear even deeper into the trap of the younger man’s ribcage and reveled in the sound of straining bones.
The angle of the spears entry and undoubtedly severed the rifleman’s lungs, which explained the lack of breath or gurgling as he withdrew to silence, and shut his eyes for the last time.
Just as soon as the last of the rifleman’s life faded, a voice called out in his direction. “All good?” They asked, voice laden with concern.
Quietly, Arkash rose again and peered through one of the bullet holes to spy the opposition, where they convened at the center, near the fire. One of them had even taken the liberty of collecting his supposed Relic, the rifle that summoned the power of the sky and brought lightning down on his foes. Rage filled the crimson depths of his eye. The rifle was his to wield, and his alone. Who was the human to claim his weapon?
With a deep breath, Arkash prepared his ether and flit his eyes about the various corpses of his foes where they laid. The blood that painted the sand. Then, with a squeeze of his fist, he let loose a volley of blood spears from all directions, of all shapes and sizes. They came from the rooftop of the facility, their tents, the ground behind Arkash, and the grounds all around them. Dozens at once skewered and ran through the opposition, crushing and impaling them in a sudden, disastrous explosion of gore. Cries of anguish and pain echoed as the bodies began to fall. Others clung to life, propped by their weapons while massive streaks of red jut from their demolished bodies.
Defeated cries of despair followed as those that weren’t instantly killed began to drop in piles where they stood. With a deep breath, Arkash rose to his feet and brushed off his ragged green tunic before he checked the injuries to his stomach and arm. His scales were completely restored over his stomach with minor scarring to show for it, and it seemed the muscles of his arm had long since ejected the bullet, as the whole thing was completely intact by the time he’d gotten around to checking the wound.
Finally, he took a knee at Ray’s side, the elf that wielded the flaming sword, and collected her weapon. Violet streaks ran through cracks in the tempered metalwork of the blade, no doubt the doing of his own craftsmanship. Even so, wielding such a weapon would have been nice.
Image source.
