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?”

Chapter 7 (Part III): The Creature

"Its flesh - it's been altered... beyond recognition! What horror have you created magister?!"

-        The magister's apprentice, Ceyla, just before the reveal of the titular antagonist in bard Cehrian’s cult horror classic “The Kerwyn Creature”. 

Kaira wasn't blind walking back out into the night. The manor house had been lit by numerous lamps, but the the sage green hillside was bathed in the silver light of the moon and stars, shining unobstructed in a cloudless sky. She could see well enough, and in the still summer air she could hear well too. In the house behind her, the guard she'd spared was desperately trying to console the panicked child he'd nearly shot. In the town, conflict of some sort had clearly broken out - evidently, at least one of their planned distractions had played out well. She walked toward the mine entrance, bow in hand, and could see one of the guards she'd incapacitated earlier was staggering back to his feet. Kaira couldn't risk the armed man getting to the weakened women in the mineshaft, and took aim with her bow.
Halfway through drawing the bow, there was a rush of air, a flapping sound, and then something knocked her to the ground, slashing her back with something sharp before taking off into the air again. She was certain she heard a cackle carried on the unearthly wind. Kaira rolled onto her feet and raised her bow. Back lit by the dim light of the moon and stars, Kaira could see a large bat like shape, but no real details. 
Whatever her assailant was, it swooped down at her again. This time Kaira dodged and rolled away from the strike, but it was still close. She fired multiple arrows after the shape, but only one even seemed to clip it. Kaira could reliably shoot birds out of the air, and this thing was quite a lot bigger than any bird she’d encountered, but it was swooping in close, striking so fast that Kaira couldn’t steady herself and lead the target.
She rolled again, drew, and held the drawn bow as she tracked her flying enemy. The creature swooped down, weaving, making itself a hard target, then looped at the last moment to come down on Kaira from directly above. Kaira dropped to both knees, twisted, and fired straight up. Kaira couldn't tell where she'd struck the creature, but she was certain it had been a solid hit, as it swerved away and rushed back into the sky screaming. Kaira turned back to the mine shaft to find two of the guards back on their feet and running for the treeline. As she watched, the creature came back down and grabbed one of them from behind, lifting him high into the air. The man's screams of horror and pain quickly gave way to long, anguished wail as his blood rained down from the sky, the creature feasting on him in mid air, before dropping his corpse like a bomb on Kaira. 
Kaira dodged, but realized she couldn't win a fight with an airborne opponent out in the open. She was considering a withdrawal back to the the manor house when she heard Regina’s voice shouting from down the hill, “Kaira! Down here!”

Kaira ran back down to Regina and dived through the door as the creature's claws slashed her back again. Regina was still weak, but energized by fear she all but dragged Kaira down the mine shaft.

“Heard her coming,” the weakened woman was short of breath, “Have a plan.”

“What?”

“Fight her - down there,” Regina pointed to a shaft that was cordoned off, “be ready to jump.”

Regina staggered to cover as the hair-raising cackling of their predator came down the shaft. Kaira fired a couple of arrows up into the darkness, and heard a perturbed growl in response. She hoped that meant she’d at least managed a glancing shot, but she dropped the bow and drew her knives.

The creature - Lionel Kerwyn's lover, Gabriella - stepped into the light of the antechamber, pulling one of Kaira's arrows from her arm as if it were a thorn. She was pretty in her own way. She was taller than Azraea, fuller bodied, fair skinned, and blonde; to Kaira she looked far more like a fairy tale princess than a vicious monster. But her blue eyes seethed with contempt that went beyond human malice. She darted forward much faster than Kaira imagined a human could – it was like seeing a snake attack; slow, deliberate motion and then sudden, explosive acceleration.

The woman was unarmed, but the claws that had slashed at Kaira above appeared again now, the flesh of her finger tips peeling back to reveal ebony talons. However, rather than simply trying to give Kaira another nasty scratch across the back, the creature was trying to reach her entrails, striking at Kaira's abdomen. Kaira dodged and backed away, focusing more on luring the woman back down the shaft than on attacking, though she got a few hits in on the woman as she retreated. As dangerous as she was, without armor or a shield, Kaira's arrows had already demonstrated that the creature wasn't invulnerable. Now, the elf’s knives cut deep into the creature’s arms, diverting her blows and drawing considerable blood. Despite that, though, the creature attacked relentlessly, apparently unconcerned by her injuries.

Kaira reached the entrance to the condemned shaft, and with one final gambit, knocked both of the creature’s clawed hands to the outsides, circled her blades under, and plunged them through her belly up into her ribcage. The creature screamed – apparently that did hurt. She tried to slash at Kaira’s throat, but Kaira stretched her inhumanly long arms out straight, putting herself out of the shorter woman’s range. Kaira heard a metal pop and a creaking sound behind the woman. With a deft side step and turn, Kaira darted off the track as a 500lb mine cart, loosed by Regina and the other prisoners, slammed into the woman. There was the brief sound of crunching bone and popping viscera - like a sack of rotten fruit dropped from a high window - soon drowned out by long wail descending into the shaft, and terminated by the rolling thunder of a crash deep in the hillside.

Chapter 7 (Part II): The Duel

"A corrupted soul, spat back from the afterlife, will always return to its own corpse to seek refuge - but what happens when their body doesn't stay dead?"

-          Magister Harper in bard Cehrian’s cult horror classic “The Kerwyn Creature”

Thrakaduhl gripped his yumi bow in his left hand and the wood-cutting axe in his right. The axe was a simple man’s tool, but Thrakaduhl believed that if a man were strong enough, and daring enough, any tool could serve as a weapon. 

Lionel’s guard fanned out around him, until the archers and the swordsmen formed a complete circle around them. Thrakaduhl realized there was only one reason for such a show of force – if Lionel started losing, he fully intended to have his men step in. The only way around that, was to ensure that Lionel lost suddenly and decisively, leaving no room for his men to rescue him. Unfortunately, Lionel was skilled enough to make that difficult.
Keeping the weighted wooden cane scabbard in his left hand, Lionel held his sword out wide, flipping it around in his right hand in a flamboyant way. He walked towards Thrakaduhl with the weapons spread out to his sides, exposing himself in an unsuccessful attempt to bait Thrakaduhl into a taking a wild swing at him. Failing to provoke his opponent into exposing himself to a counter attack, Lionel feinted high with the cane and then swung low with the sword.

Gripping the wood-axe with one hand, Thrakaduhl blocked the heavy cane, but rather than block the blade with the bow in his off-hand, Thrakaduhl hopped sideways and twisted the axe to force Lionel's cane in the way of his own sword swing. Thrakaduhl risked a tight spin hoping to take off at least part of Lionel's left arm with the axe. Lionel deftly dodged the move, and then changed his bearing, tightening up his form and moving more cautiously. Lionel held the cane high as a thin but quick shield, while snaking the blade back and forth beneath it, waiting for the right moment to strike.
Most orcs would have probably dropped the bow and started trying to crush their enemy with powerful two-handed swings of the axe. Thrakaduhl had grown up being the weak one, though, being beaten and abused by his much stronger father and his friends. He'd learned skills that relied on speed and precision, and he fell back on those skills now, wielding the axe and bow like a pair of elvish batons. Lionel advanced and suddenly twisted left, swinging the cane in an attempt to knock away Thrakaduhl's axe and lunge with his blade in the same motion. Rather than deflect the cane strike and leave himself open, Thrakaduhl used the axehead to hook the cane, and with a downward left twist he yanked the cane towards the ground. He'd expected that to block Lionel's lunge, but to Thrakaduhl's surprise, Lionel hadn't fully committed to the attack, and deftly twisted his sword to stab high, aiming at Thrakaduhl's face. Thrakaduhl jerked his head to the side as the razor sharp blade cut across his left cheek and ear. Lionel puled the blade back lower and swung it slightly sideways as he withdrew, trying to slice open Thrakaduhl's carotid artery. The orc twisted to protect his vulnerable throat, and suffered a painful but superficial cut across the back of his neck.
Lionel hopped backwards as Thrakaduhl used the momentum of his own dodge to drag the axe head through the dirt, narrowly missing Lionel's ankle. Neither of them pressed the attack, and instead found themselves staring each other down across the line Thrakaduhl's axe had drawn in the dirt.
"I'll admit," Lionel said, "I was expecting you to be a bit more exciting. I've drawn blood twice, and you've only succeeded in assaulting the ground. This duel is something of an anticlimax. Maybe I should tell my men to go take a break? Not going to be much of a show for them here.
Thrakaduhl ignored the painful cuts and smiled, "I don't know, I think things are looking up for me." With a powerful swing he tossed the wood axe straight in the air, and Lionel reflexively followed the weapon with his eyes. His right hand already high above his shoulder, Thrakaduhl grabbed one of the arrows from his quiver as he brought his hand down, laid it across the bow and nocked it without reversing his grip on the string. He drew and fired as the axe came back down, and caught the haft of the woodaxe back in his hand. Lionel staggered backwards with blood trailing from his cheek and ear where the arrow had narrowly missed his face. 
Thrakaduhl knew he was doing well to have inflicted the flesh wound. The orc's yumi bow was a large weapon with long arrows. It was meant for a high power, long range weapon. Nocking one of the over-sized arrows, drawing the huge bow, and firing it in the one second it took for the axe to return didn't leave time for the more delicate art of aiming. Thrakaduhl's odds of actually hitting Lionel squarely in the face had been slim - especially considering he'd been aiming at the man's heart. But Lionel didn't know that, and the man's new found uncertainty gave Thrakaduhl a little breathing room. 
 Against Lionel, slow long swings would have been suicidal. Thrakaduhl knew he needed to focus on blocking and dodging more than attacking, because his opponent’s fencing style was built around turning an opponent’s attack into an opening. Lionel began attacking again, but he clearly held back with every strike, prepared to capitalize on an opportunity, or to dodge away from another stunt like Thrakaduhl had pulled with his bow. The man still had Thrakaduhl on the back foot, striking at his fingers and wrists in an attempt to disarm him, but he was now afraid to push his advantage by closing in, not sure what other surprises the orc might have.

Their pitched duel was interrupted when chaos erupted from the stables. There was barking and screaming, and the sounds of a lot of men shouting about a werewolf. Finally, one of Lionel’s brothers threw open one of the large doors and staggered out, clutching his throat. Blood pulsing out between his fingers, he didn’t make it more than a few steps before he collapsed to the ground. He was followed closely by a stampede of terrified horses, their would-be riders, and one frantic bull. Jon stalked out last, striding into the torchlight upright in his canine form. Under ordinary circumstances, his appearance might have been described as alarming, but not threatening. Now, however, his ears were laid back and his lips were drawn back to reveal long, sharp teeth. In one hand he carried a bloody farming sickle - a weapon of opportunity he'd seized in the barn, and in the other hand he carried the heads of three Kerwyns, his claws gripping their matted hair. 
“I WANT MY WIFE BACK YOU BASTARD!” Jon's howl was jarringly human.

Lionel started to order his men to take the creature down, but the panicked bull had run right through the archers, scattering them. Behind Lionel, the people rushed down from the stands as quickly as they dared with their children and loved ones – most fled to safety, but many of the younger men and women fell upon Kerwyn’s men from behind, wrestling them to the ground and pulling their weapons away from them.

Jon ran into the midst of the maelstrom, flinging the heads at one of the guards, and downing another with the sickle. Lionel was cornered between the orc and the lycanthrope.

“Best do as the man asks,” Thrakaduhl said calmly, “I don’t think he’s interested in an honorable duel, and you’re a might outnumbered now.”

“That is true,” a voice said. It seemed to start in the box seats, but finish right in front of them. A woman… the young woman who’d accompanied Lionel to the race, now stood right next to the man, “Perhaps I can offer you more even odds.”

“No! Gabriella!” Lionel said, “The elf isn’t here! It’s a distraction!”

“The larder!” she suddenly said in realization.

“Go! You’re the only one fast enough!”

The woman flew into the dark sky with a sound like leather sails whipping in the wind.

“Well… that’s unusual.” Thrakaduhl noted.

Chapter 7 (Part I): Blood Spilled, Chains Broken

They sealed the beast in those mines for a reason, you damned fool! What were you thinking?! Oh, you scholars are all alike – you start digging at even a whiff of discovery, without ever considering the warnings left by history!

-          Sheriff Gerald in bard Cehrian’s cult horror classic “The Kerwyn Creature”

Kaira didn’t have to move far down the tunnels. The first antechamber inside the mine was lit by some oil lamps, and it revealed a gruesome sight. Heavy old mine carts were encrusted with what looked like dried blood, and in the spaces where the miners likely took breaks at one point, there were now a dozen stacked cages that reminded Kaira of kennels. Young women languished in the pens, pale, malnourished, and covered in filth. Among them, Kaira immediately recognized Regina, despite her red hair being matted and dirty.

“Regina?” Kaira said, “Geena?” she used Jon’s pet name for her, “Can you hear me?”

The woman stirred and looked up weakly, “Kaira?” She had good reason to be confused, but dehydration and abuse had probably done her no favors. Kaira thought it was odd that the women all looked so dried out, considering that they seemed to have plenty of water, but it certainly wasn't the time to dwell on such things.

“Regina, Jon found you. He’s in town creating a distraction, and I’m getting you out of here. All of you.” Kaira broke the lock on the cage with one of her long knives, and pulled the woman out. It was like hauling dead weight though, “Come on Regina, I need you to work with me here. I can’t carry you out.” It quickly became clear that Regina’s torpor wasn’t a matter of a broken spirit; she was exsanguinated.

“What has Lionel been doing to you all?” Kaira asked as she looked into Regina’s sunken eyes.

“Not Lionel…” Regina said, “It wasn’t him…” 


Kaira helped the last of the women out of their cages as Regina explained, “I can hear better than anyone else they’ve kept down here. I can hear what goes on upstairs. Lionel used to be in the sex trade, but he got connected to someone else, ‘the hemomancer’, whatever that is.”

“Someone who studies the manipulation of blood,” Kaira said, “Azraea knows a little. She doesn’t like to talk about it.”

“Well, that fits,” Regina nodded as she tried to build the strength to stand, “Part of the connection was getting himself a bride just as nasty as him. I guess most of the Kerwyns just take women and use them, but this ‘Lady Gabriella’ is like Lionel’s soul mate. She’s every bit as bad as him. Worse maybe; I think maybe she goes in for cannibalism.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Some of the blood they take, it gets preserved and sent on to their hemomancer friend, but I’m pretty sure Gabriella’s been drinking the rest.”

“Drinking blood is a common enough thing,” Kaira said calmly, “but human blood is… well, that’s definitely unusual. Any idea where she’s from?”

“Nowhere exotic,” Regina said, “No accent at all. I’d be certain she’s Caelian.”

“Can you fight?”

“I can’t even transform anymore,” Regina said, “I’m sorry…”

“It’s okay,” Kaira helped one of the other women sit comfortably and then put a hand on Regina’s shoulder, “It will be okay. You won’t need to fight. I’ll take care of it. I’ll clear the guards out, and then we’ll get you out of here. One by one if need be.”

Kaira ran back up to the entrance of the mine. The guards had already taken to wondering where their comrade was at, and were pounding on the door, figuring he might have gone into the mine for some alone time with the prisoners. At least two men would be on the other side of the door, alert and angry.  Kaira picked up a rusted pick axe, and with a couple of swings cracked the wood around the hinges and around the lock.

Kaira didn’t have Thrakaduhl’s body mass, but she had muscle nonetheless, and with a twist she launched a kick straight into the door. It cracked out of its frame and fell forward onto the men on the other side. One of the men tried to scramble out as she ran across the fallen door, but she sank the pickaxe into the back of his shoulder as he fled, yanked him back to her, and pulled his bow and arrows off his back before tossing him aside. The man up on the balcony was screaming like mad; he’d already roused the men in the barracks and sent them down to the road to respond to havoc unfolding down at the race track, but was now calling for them to come back and deal with Kaira. She took a breath, drew the bow, aimed, exhaled, and sank an arrow into the mercenary’s lower right lung.

The men headed into town split up – about half continued down the hill, but about half came running back up, drawing their own bows. Kaira ran towards the big house and fired a few quickly aimed shots that maimed two of the men running to intercept her. She dived through an open side window as several arrows sank into the wooden frame. Drawing her knives, she darted into the living room and slashed the throat of the first man to come through the front door, then retreated into the hallway as the others pursued her. She vaulted over a counter in the kitchen, grabbed a knife block, and threw the contents as rapidly as possible, as if she were playing a timed game of darts. One man fell down dead, two more were maimed badly enough to quit the fight. She completed the circle around the interior of the house, but found herself surrounded on the large stair case. Three men stood with bows drawn; tensed and ready for the slightest move. That they hadn’t fired yet suggested that they were less confident in their aim than Kaira was. Each of them seemed to be wondering if missing the elf would be a death sentence.

When Kaira heard soft footsteps on the stairs behind her, she thought she was done for, but the reflection in a mirror below revealed a small boy, frightened and confused. Unfortunately, one of the guards was so keyed up that he simply reacted to the movement and loosed an arrow straight at the kid.

Kaira didn’t know who the kid was, who he was related to, or what sort of monster he might become, but she reacted without considering any of that. She reached out and caught the arrow. It skewered the palm of her hand, but stopped just short of the screaming, terrified child.

The man who’d fired just stopped slack jawed, “Oh my god, oh my god, I almost killed a kid, I almost killed a kid…”

“Get a grip Clancy,” one of the men said, “You ain’t never killed a kid? Crimony, this is why we shouldn’t take highway guards. They don’t have the grit to do this job.” The second man finally fired despite the bawling child behind his target, but Kaira had already snatched up a decorative silver tray and knocked his bow sideways as he let the arrow go. With a spin down the steps she caved in his larynx with the edge of the platter, and with a final backhand she stabbed the third man through the throat with the arrow still lodged between her tarsals. She snapped the shaft with a grunt, and let the arrow slide free as the man fell.

The former highway guardsman ignored her, and just rushed past her to the kid, apparently concerned that he had somehow actually killed the child and that her last second interception had simply been in his imagination.

Kaira’s finger twitched on her sheathed knife, thinking of the torments endured by the women below, but she kept it sheathed. The man evidently had some measure of a conscience, and maybe if she held off on killing bad guys like him, some sort of natural selection based on morality would eventually take effect. She picked up a new bow and a handful of arrows, and calmly walked out.