Chapter 7 (Part IV): By Force of Arms

"The End...?"

-        The Narrator's closing line in bard Cehrian’s cult horror classic “The Kerwyn Creature”.  The stage community remains divided over how the narrator is expected to produce the "...?" vocally.

Lionel feinted a lunge on Thrakaduhl, but stopped and spun as Jon lunged at him. The blade nearly cut Jon’s throat, but Thrakaduhl clumsily snared Lionel with his long bow, throwing off his swing and lowering the blade tip. The move saved Jon’s life, but Lionel’s sword still inflicted a long deep cut across the lycanthrope's rib cage. It also gave Lionel an opening to turn his slash into a thrust that nearly skewered Thrakaduhl’s collar bone. Thrakaduhl ducked below the strike, so that the blade simply glanced across his shoulder.

The man’s footwork was impressive, so Thrakaduhl decided it was time to get him off his feet. Lionel started to pull his sword backwards for another strike, but Thrakaduhl dropped his weapons and launched himself forward and up, tackling Lionel with a powerful upward bound. It was an uncivilized, brutish attack Lionel's upbringing had never prepared him for. The man beat Thrakaduhl across the back with his razor sharp blade, but he had no way to turn the blade to plunge the point in, and no leverage to inflict deep cuts. Thrakaduhl lifted the man in his green arms, and gave him a single powerful squeeze. The man’s ribs crunched, and were pulled out of place by muscle tension, forcing Lionel to drop his sword. Thrakaduhl released the man unceremoniously, allowing him to tumble to the ground like a sandbag. The orc moved for the killing blow, but Lionel simply clutched his chest and began spitting up blood. The man was certainly out of the fight, and Thrakaduhl wasn’t keen to execute someone.

Unfortunately, with Lionel possibly still able to cut a paycheck, the five mercenaries who’d managed to drive off the angry villagers closed in. Jon was down for the count, and the axe and sword were both out of reach. In one fluid motion, Thrakaduhl rolled to grab his bow and drew three arrows as he landed on one knee. He'd missed Lionel when he'd taken a potshot at him during their duel but that quick, point blank shot had been much more challenging. Thrakaduhl loosed two shots in quick succession. The torches didn’t provide the best lighting conditions, but Thrakaduhl could literally see the whites of their eyes, so that’s where he aimed. Two of the five men dropped to the ground, screaming with arrows driven deep into their eye sockets, the narrow heads puncturing the skull just below the brain.

“I have one more,” Thrakaduhl said with his bow drawn, “Which one of you will it be?”

The three remaining men reached the point of ‘we’re not paid enough for this,’ dropped their weapons, and hauled away their screaming comrades.

Thrakaduhl checked on Jon as the man reverted to his human form. He was in a great deal of pain, but with no major arteries or veins cut, the nine inch wound bled slowly. Properly cleaned and bandaged, Thrakaduhl told him, the man would be fine.  

Meanwhile, the mob was still angrily struggling with many of the mercenaries, who were now at this point disarmed and simply trying to shield themselves from punches and kicks.

“Enough!” Thrakaduhl shouted as he waded into the fray. His voice carried such weight that it might have immediately stopped the people even if he hadn't stepped in physically, “If you need to bring justice against these men then bind them, and decide what to do with them later. As we have fought here, my lady friend Kaira has been searching the Kerwyn estate for prisoners, and if there are any, she’ll have freed them by now. Do y’all want to waste your time beating these wretches to death when there may be innocent people in need of aid and comfort up there?”

The mob backed off and released the men.

Thrakaduhl singled out individuals, “You, get water ready in case there’s any up there that’ll be needing it. You, find blankets. You two – come up with a way to carry anyone down from there that can’t walk. You, find a doctor to tend to my friend here, and be ready to help him with the prisoners. The rest of you, grab some weapons and follow me.

Thrakaduhl ripped a long silk sash off of Lionel, who was still rolling on the ground sputtering, and bound Jon’s wound with it. He picked up Lionel’s sword in one hand and pulled Jon up with the other. Jon knew it would be better, and easier, for him to stay there, but the man had been parted from his wife for long enough. Thrakaduhl didn’t argue, he just steadied the man as they walked up the hill to the Kerwyn’s house.

They encountered several of Lionel’s troops coming into the fair as reinforcements, but when the troops saw the growing mob coming from the race track, they must have guessed Lionel had written his last check, because they scattered like roaches in lamp light.

The freed prisoners were already gathered on the lawn, too exhausted from their ordeal to walk down, but reveling in the fresh air. Kaira had one prisoner, a man she’d knocked out earlier, and said the house still had several guards inside who’d been maimed to varying degrees, and one man who was fit to negotiate on behalf of the house’s remaining inhabitants. The villagers were ready to burn the house to the ground, but Thrakaduhl talked them down, urging them to tend to Kerwyns’ victims, and to deal with their prisoners and the Kerwyns’ stolen property tomorrow with more level heads.

Jon fell to the ground with Regina. Neither of them could stand nor walk easily, but they were alive, safe, and together again at last.

Kaira and Thrakaduhl embraced, and he finally thought to ask, “What happened to the bat-woman monster-thing?”

“You knew about that?” Kaira asked.

“Apparently it was Lionel Kerwyn's wife. Lit out of our fight when Lionel realized you were probably up here."
"Were you worried about me?"
Thrakaduhl shrugged, "Didn’t seem like anything you couldn’t handle.”

Kaira smiled, “I’m not sure if it’s dead, but it is smeared along about three hundred feet of track and buried under about two tons of loose rock and a mine cart.”

 “Now see, what cause did I have to worry?”