1st of Glade, 4622
It was late into the night that Arkash and Izzy arrived at the site of the gang’s encampment; the gang that she wished to see destroyed. Arkash had made an effort to remain undetected as he snuck into the camp, but killing without so much as a sound was difficult to do. People had to fight, scream, and claw for their lives when assaulted by a predator, and the humans Arkash had crossed in the dark of the tent were no different. In their struggles, another had come to investigate the cry that was cut short and the muffled gurgling that trailed before the press of his blade. That same human stood in the doorway of the tent, staring down the Rath that had taken his comrades, a mere couple of feet from his raised blade.
Arkash’s gaze fixed on his, and the boy’s gaze fixed on him.
His nose curled as the human parted his lips to scream, and Arkash dove forward without a sound.
All at once, he overcame the human with a thrust of his blade. The ultra-fine point of the sword bit into the rounded bone of the boy’s face and gave purchase to his thrust, which split all the way through the various bones and tissues that laid in his way, and broke through the back of the boy’s head. He gave just a second pause to stop his momentum as the call of the deeper man’s voice followed more drastic cries of surprise and shock, then pulled against the spine of his blade to yank the boy’s body out of sight. At once, Arkash fell to the floor and pulled the corpse over as a series of gunshots rang out and ripped through the tarp of the tent.
While the humans reloaded from their campfire, Arkash searched the boy’s corpse for ammunition. His stealth was lost, and so it was time to bring out his rifle. More chatter rang out from beyond the torn tarp as Arkash seized a handful of rounds. “Did we get ‘im?!” Rang out a tremorous call.
“No fackin’ way!” Called another.
“What’s goin’ on?!” Came a new voice, followed by a few others.
“We heard the gunshots, what happened?” Came a woman’s voice.
Arkash hissed as he rolled onto his front and began to load the rifle with six rounds, which he then snapped shut.
“Some’fin jus’ killed Jenks,” the older man’s voice explained.
“Killed him?” The woman returned. “What do you mean?”
“Ran a sword through ‘is fuckin’ ‘ead!” The man returned. “Trus’ me, ‘es dead!”
“Over there?” She asked, surely motioning to the torn-up tent while Arkash collected Jenks’s rifle and crawled to the back of the tent. “Go check it out,” she spoke with authority.
“Me?” Asked the voice of another young man, one Arkash hadn’t heard yet. It was difficult to tell just how many reinforcements had shown up.
“Yes, you. The rest of you, take aim in case shit hits the fan.” A resounding click of rifles and a chorus of loading hammers came as Arkash cut through the back of the tent with a dextrous flex of his claws and slipped through with quiet ease.
“Why do I gotta check?” The boy asked as Arkash peered over the rim of the ten with his piercing red eyes. There, he saw the whole scene and began to count the number of heads in the area. Without moving his head, he peered at the rooftop of the central complex where the riflemen stood firm, weapons aimed at the scene.
The woman stared at the boy with an amusingly refined expression of distaste at his defiance, scoffed, then spoke “alright, fine. If we’d known you were a sackless wimp, we wouldn’t have let you in to begin with,” and earned a resounding chuckle from those gathered. “Any volunteers?” She asked.
“Fine,” that boy returned, flustered. “I’ll go, just watch me back,” he asked with an obvious degree of disdain as he turned and trudged with attitude in every step.
Altogether, Arkash counted eighteen heads if he included the two riflemen at the top of the tower. Their races were difficult to identify with all the cloth coverings they wore, but it was fairly obvious that they weren’t all of the same race, as some stood several feet higher than others with patches of vibrantly colored skin on display at the odd glimpse.
As the younger man vanished from his line of sight and disappeared toward the closeness of the tent, Arkash narrowed his sights on the female that appeared to be calling the shots while the gathered Badlanders raised their weapons at the tent Arkash had escaped. With a deep breath through his nose, Arkash readied both rifles and bit down on his jaw while he mentally prepared himself.
He could have gotten up, repositioned, and tried to maneuver an attack against them from a different angle, but at that time there was a chance that they could disperse and form a strategy of their own. Arkash had to capitalize on their confusion with such a difference in numbers.
So, as his nose curled, Arkash tensed his legs and threw himself from his hiding spot with a sharp turn of his body that brought both barrels of his rifles to aim down the group. In that split second, a few sets of eyes shifted to him, but their bodies were slower to react. Before the first could cry out a warning, Arkash pulled both triggers and opened fire on the gathered bandits. The flintlock weapon failed to fire as the hammer struck the steel, but the Relic he’d acquired in the derelict? On pulling the trigger, a thundering blast resounded as the hammer struck the bullet, and sparks of vibrant blue flew in all directions.
An arc of lightning followed the bullet from the barrel and flashed with stark, vibrant power as it struck the enemy in his way. Cries of shock rang out as Arkash stuck the landing behind the other tent, followed by a firm order. “TO THE LEFT! FIRE!”
Arkash didn’t stop as a volley of gunfire rang out across the dunes, flecks of sand propelled at such velocity that they seemed to bite his exposed scales while he ran at an unnatural speed. Arkash pulled back the hammer of the flintlock with his teeth, aimed, and fired again with a successful blast, only to miss completely with a burst of smoke.
A glance to the rooftop of the central complex put his eyes on the marksmen above, which Arkash was hard-pressed to evade with a sudden dive in the opposite direction. Mere feet before him, the rifle round struck with a burst of sand, followed by a second a little to the left of that. A harsh hiss escaped his muzzle as Arkash inspected the Relic rifle for its cooldown and found that he had some seconds to go. A glance to the flintlock saw him discard the weapon without care.
“’E’s a fackin mage!” Cried one of the men over the ambient panic as men and women dispersed from a convulsing, thunderstruck man on the ground.
“No! That’s a Relic!” Called the woman from before as she loaded her own rifle respectively. “It’s not a mage! Just shoot it down!”
A flick of his tongue revealed little blood on the wind; he hadn’t hit anywhere important when he struck the floored one. A curl of his nose saw him hiss as he bound toward the bandits with his sword drawn in his offhand. They needed to bleed more if he was going to attempt the maneuver he held in the back of his mind. So, on collision with the first, who raised a scimitar in their defense, Arkash cut clean through the blade and rent their arms from the elbow down. A spray of red followed his strike, but he didn’t pause to catch it. Instead, he was off again to the next as a few more bullets were fired in his direction. Some littered the armless bandit while others struck the sand before him. One caught his tricep with a shallow graze.
A curl of his nose was his sole reaction to the catch of the bullet; it didn’t inhibit him. He took aim with a reach of his rifle while he ran and tried the trigger, but found that it wouldn’t fire; it was still cooling down. Some of the Badlanders had prepared multiple guns, Arkash determined. Such didn’t matter as he ran through the thrust of a Jindai’s polearm and followed the arc of the swing as the man tried to bat him away in vain.
An aggressive swing of his blade saw him cut clean through the wooden shaft as he dove beneath and swiped the teeth of his blade through the giant’s stomach and briefly glanced back as entrails spilled from the wound, clutched between the elemental’s hands.
There was no pause as Arkash continued his blurred run through his targets, took evasive maneuvers, and cleaved through meat like paper.
It was late into the night that Arkash and Izzy arrived at the site of the gang’s encampment; the gang that she wished to see destroyed. Arkash had made an effort to remain undetected as he snuck into the camp, but killing without so much as a sound was difficult to do. People had to fight, scream, and claw for their lives when assaulted by a predator, and the humans Arkash had crossed in the dark of the tent were no different. In their struggles, another had come to investigate the cry that was cut short and the muffled gurgling that trailed before the press of his blade. That same human stood in the doorway of the tent, staring down the Rath that had taken his comrades, a mere couple of feet from his raised blade.
Arkash’s gaze fixed on his, and the boy’s gaze fixed on him.
His nose curled as the human parted his lips to scream, and Arkash dove forward without a sound.
All at once, he overcame the human with a thrust of his blade. The ultra-fine point of the sword bit into the rounded bone of the boy’s face and gave purchase to his thrust, which split all the way through the various bones and tissues that laid in his way, and broke through the back of the boy’s head. He gave just a second pause to stop his momentum as the call of the deeper man’s voice followed more drastic cries of surprise and shock, then pulled against the spine of his blade to yank the boy’s body out of sight. At once, Arkash fell to the floor and pulled the corpse over as a series of gunshots rang out and ripped through the tarp of the tent.
While the humans reloaded from their campfire, Arkash searched the boy’s corpse for ammunition. His stealth was lost, and so it was time to bring out his rifle. More chatter rang out from beyond the torn tarp as Arkash seized a handful of rounds. “Did we get ‘im?!” Rang out a tremorous call.
“No fackin’ way!” Called another.
“What’s goin’ on?!” Came a new voice, followed by a few others.
“We heard the gunshots, what happened?” Came a woman’s voice.
Arkash hissed as he rolled onto his front and began to load the rifle with six rounds, which he then snapped shut.
“Some’fin jus’ killed Jenks,” the older man’s voice explained.
“Killed him?” The woman returned. “What do you mean?”
“Ran a sword through ‘is fuckin’ ‘ead!” The man returned. “Trus’ me, ‘es dead!”
“Over there?” She asked, surely motioning to the torn-up tent while Arkash collected Jenks’s rifle and crawled to the back of the tent. “Go check it out,” she spoke with authority.
“Me?” Asked the voice of another young man, one Arkash hadn’t heard yet. It was difficult to tell just how many reinforcements had shown up.
“Yes, you. The rest of you, take aim in case shit hits the fan.” A resounding click of rifles and a chorus of loading hammers came as Arkash cut through the back of the tent with a dextrous flex of his claws and slipped through with quiet ease.
“Why do I gotta check?” The boy asked as Arkash peered over the rim of the ten with his piercing red eyes. There, he saw the whole scene and began to count the number of heads in the area. Without moving his head, he peered at the rooftop of the central complex where the riflemen stood firm, weapons aimed at the scene.
The woman stared at the boy with an amusingly refined expression of distaste at his defiance, scoffed, then spoke “alright, fine. If we’d known you were a sackless wimp, we wouldn’t have let you in to begin with,” and earned a resounding chuckle from those gathered. “Any volunteers?” She asked.
“Fine,” that boy returned, flustered. “I’ll go, just watch me back,” he asked with an obvious degree of disdain as he turned and trudged with attitude in every step.
Altogether, Arkash counted eighteen heads if he included the two riflemen at the top of the tower. Their races were difficult to identify with all the cloth coverings they wore, but it was fairly obvious that they weren’t all of the same race, as some stood several feet higher than others with patches of vibrantly colored skin on display at the odd glimpse.
As the younger man vanished from his line of sight and disappeared toward the closeness of the tent, Arkash narrowed his sights on the female that appeared to be calling the shots while the gathered Badlanders raised their weapons at the tent Arkash had escaped. With a deep breath through his nose, Arkash readied both rifles and bit down on his jaw while he mentally prepared himself.
He could have gotten up, repositioned, and tried to maneuver an attack against them from a different angle, but at that time there was a chance that they could disperse and form a strategy of their own. Arkash had to capitalize on their confusion with such a difference in numbers.
So, as his nose curled, Arkash tensed his legs and threw himself from his hiding spot with a sharp turn of his body that brought both barrels of his rifles to aim down the group. In that split second, a few sets of eyes shifted to him, but their bodies were slower to react. Before the first could cry out a warning, Arkash pulled both triggers and opened fire on the gathered bandits. The flintlock weapon failed to fire as the hammer struck the steel, but the Relic he’d acquired in the derelict? On pulling the trigger, a thundering blast resounded as the hammer struck the bullet, and sparks of vibrant blue flew in all directions.
An arc of lightning followed the bullet from the barrel and flashed with stark, vibrant power as it struck the enemy in his way. Cries of shock rang out as Arkash stuck the landing behind the other tent, followed by a firm order. “TO THE LEFT! FIRE!”
Arkash didn’t stop as a volley of gunfire rang out across the dunes, flecks of sand propelled at such velocity that they seemed to bite his exposed scales while he ran at an unnatural speed. Arkash pulled back the hammer of the flintlock with his teeth, aimed, and fired again with a successful blast, only to miss completely with a burst of smoke.
A glance to the rooftop of the central complex put his eyes on the marksmen above, which Arkash was hard-pressed to evade with a sudden dive in the opposite direction. Mere feet before him, the rifle round struck with a burst of sand, followed by a second a little to the left of that. A harsh hiss escaped his muzzle as Arkash inspected the Relic rifle for its cooldown and found that he had some seconds to go. A glance to the flintlock saw him discard the weapon without care.
“’E’s a fackin mage!” Cried one of the men over the ambient panic as men and women dispersed from a convulsing, thunderstruck man on the ground.
“No! That’s a Relic!” Called the woman from before as she loaded her own rifle respectively. “It’s not a mage! Just shoot it down!”
A flick of his tongue revealed little blood on the wind; he hadn’t hit anywhere important when he struck the floored one. A curl of his nose saw him hiss as he bound toward the bandits with his sword drawn in his offhand. They needed to bleed more if he was going to attempt the maneuver he held in the back of his mind. So, on collision with the first, who raised a scimitar in their defense, Arkash cut clean through the blade and rent their arms from the elbow down. A spray of red followed his strike, but he didn’t pause to catch it. Instead, he was off again to the next as a few more bullets were fired in his direction. Some littered the armless bandit while others struck the sand before him. One caught his tricep with a shallow graze.
A curl of his nose was his sole reaction to the catch of the bullet; it didn’t inhibit him. He took aim with a reach of his rifle while he ran and tried the trigger, but found that it wouldn’t fire; it was still cooling down. Some of the Badlanders had prepared multiple guns, Arkash determined. Such didn’t matter as he ran through the thrust of a Jindai’s polearm and followed the arc of the swing as the man tried to bat him away in vain.
An aggressive swing of his blade saw him cut clean through the wooden shaft as he dove beneath and swiped the teeth of his blade through the giant’s stomach and briefly glanced back as entrails spilled from the wound, clutched between the elemental’s hands.
There was no pause as Arkash continued his blurred run through his targets, took evasive maneuvers, and cleaved through meat like paper.
Image source.
