Mar had expected the civilians to run once the fighting started, instead they fell on the out-numbered guards with a viciousness usually seen in cornered animals. Suddenly Mar found himself in the eye of the storm that the entire town had turned into, and he wasn't alone.
The Imperials, while distracted by the villager uprising they now had on their hands, hadn't forgotten who had issued the first blow in this conflict. Three of the purple garbed soldiers were advancing on him, and they looked pissed. Of the three men, two were fresh faced recruits, barely out of their teens. Still, they both possessed the mean look of men who were intimately familiar with the battlefield. They had both fought for their lives, and they had both killed in the service of their country. They wouldn’t go down without a fight.
The last man was an older chap, judging from the look on his face Mar had the correct idea that he had been friends with the sergeant Mar had just cut down. He was experienced, strong and while his hair may have been greying, that didn’t mean he couldn’t go toe to toe with the far younger men around him and win to boot. The two recruits both carried black cloth covered bucklers and ō-wakizashi’s. The older man had traded in his ō-wakizashi for a mean looking battle axe, its construction was less ornamental than the Imperial’s usual weapons, as it had been taken from the dead hands of a Free Kingdom’s soldier.
They were well trained, and their equipment well maintained, career solders who had all seen action, brutality, and death. If they knew anything about the Chained however, they would have called for more men. Chained were faster, stronger, and more agile then even the best examples humanity had to offer, only those highly skilled in magical attacks could be relied upon to defeat one single handily on the field of battle.
The first clue the three Imperials received of this fact was when Mar smoothly threw his throwing knife towards the older of the three. To the old man’s credit, he had spotted the knife on Mar’s belt, and had anticipated the attack. He hadn’t expected Mar to be quite so fast however and was almost unable to raise his shield in time to block the attack. What he didn’t expect was what happened when Mar’s knife reached his shield.
Mar used his meagre air magic, combined with his natural speed and strength, to throw the knife with superhuman force. He tried to focus his magic enough to air wrap it as it flew. Using magic to wrap the air around the knife, greatly reducing its air resistance and providing a mild amount of thrust as the air from in front of the knife was moved behind it. He’d performed the same trick on himself when he had stepped on the hunter’s mines back in death forest. However, for novice mages such as Mar (not to mention those with the magical equivalent of a rock) it was far easier to perform such spells on themselves then it was to apply the effect to another object.
The speed of the knife was also working against him, moving considerably faster than what he could manage at a full sprint. The spell could hardly be considered well cast, but sometimes good enough is a state of mind, and sometimes it’s a state of matter.
The skysteel throwing knife met the iron buckler and passed clean through the material. Unperturbed after passing it’s first barrier, the knife continued into the solders helmet, also managing to penetrate that, before coming to a violent rest inside the frontal lobe of the once living Imperial solder.
He was dead before he hit the ground.
The other two Imperial solders hadn’t noticed the death of their companion, so quick had the violence been, a lack of situational awareness Mar exploited to it’s fullest. The two young Imperials were nearly indistinguishable in their matching armour sets; however, one was blonde, and the other had deep green eyes.
Mar moved forward rapidly, intending to meet the charging soldiers on an even footing. He brought his sword up and moved to the left to meet Blondies charge head on. His sword swung from down low, a fast-rising blow, one which Blondie was able to meet with a skilled block. Mar’s sword smashed into Blondie’s; the force more than the Imperial soldier expected or was able to deflect. Mars blow was instead brought to a proper halt by the Imperial’s shoulder armour.
Blondie grunted in pain as his left shoulder was thoroughly bruised by Mar’s blow. Fortunately for him however his block had managed to stop most of the blow’s force, so his armour held, and he kept the arm, not to mention his life. This was not fortunate for Mar however, who now had to deal with Green Eyes and didn’t have the time to capitalise on Blondie’s temporarily stunned state.
Mar jumped back, out of the sweeping range of Green Eye’s first attack, before swearing as he almost tripped over the corpse of the decapitated sergeant. Green Eye didn’t waste a moment of Mar’s mistake and pressed his attack with a series of vicious blows. Mar was able to deflect two blows from the Imperial’s sword, however Green Eye slammed his buckler into Mar’s undefended side, winding him. Mar had to resort to using his magic to bail himself out of the situation and succeeded by absorbing the air around him in through his skin instead of his lungs. His head felt like a shard of ice was digging into it from the magic exertion, however he could still fight.
Green Eye had expected Mar to be stunned for a moment and had lifted his sword for a massive overhead blow, leaving his torso momentarily exposed. Mar’s blow didn’t wind the man, it gutted him. The rounded blunt tip of Mar’s sword was thrust forward with such force that it was able to punch through the Imperial’s iron armour and bury itself into his abdomen.
The fight with Green Eye, even though it had only been a few very hectic seconds, had given Blondie enough time to recover. Mar saw the attack out of the corner of his eye, Blondie thrusting his sword forward, his stance parade perfect. The blow could skewer Mar just as he’d skewered Green Eye. To make matters worse Mar didn’t have time to pull his sword from Green Eye to dodge the attack. Instead, Mar dived forward, pushing his sword further into Green Eye’s dying body and landing on the ground with a bone jarring rattle. Mar used his momentum to roll forward and rapidly get to his feet, covering himself in blood and dust in the process.
Mar had abandoned his sword in Green Eye to do so, and now faced Blondie armed only with a dagger (which had yet to be pulled from his belt.). Blondie advanced slowly with a cruel smile, blocking the route to Mar’s sword, ready to savour Mar’s death. In order to survive Mar had to use the one magical skill the Chained had access to from day one.
The sword embedded in Blondie’s body was a simple looking affair, a dull grey with a rounded tip. A straight cross-guard of the same material. A slight rounded pommel with a handle wrapped into brown leather strips. Easily overlooked, but the source of the Chained’s life force. The weapon that Mar’s entire survival depended on. But more than that, an extension of himself. A fragment of his soul and body. A Chained’s body was made using the skeleton of a human coated in the remnants of a clay’s malleable form. Clay’s weapons were always part of their bodies, grown from that malleable dull grey flesh. A Chained’s weapon was the same.
The sword embedded in Green Eye’s corpse faded, it’s dull grey somehow becoming duller, before even the slightest bit of shine left it entirely. The leather strips which had been crudely attached fell to the ground as the handle, as the entire blade in fact, warped under the weight of gravity. The grey gave way to the brown of clay, the namesake of the Clay, as the sword collapsed into nothingness. The energy sustaining its form having been ripped away.
As the energy flowed into Mar his headache faded, only to rapidly return when it began to flow out of his body once more. The energy travelled through his right arm and down to his hand, past his hand and into the air itself. A blade began to form, sliding out of Mar’s hand like icing out of a piping bag. The process took a few seconds, so Mar had to doge a couple of Blondies attacks, but his speed ensured that doing so was easy enough now that he only had one combatant to focus on.
When the sword finally finished reforming it lacked the leather grip but was otherwise the same sword as he had held previously. The Imperial didn’t know quite what to make of that but was soon too focused on deflecting Mar’s rapid strikes to put any real thought into it. Blondie may have been well trained and clearly skilled, but he was no match for Mar’s speed and force. Many more of Mar’s attacks were blocked by using both Blondie’s sword and his armour, leaving the man himself battered and heavily bruised. By the time Mar’s overhead blow came crashing down onto the man’s skull, it was almost a mercy killing.
His battle with the Imperials now ended, and four corpses newly collapsed onto the ground, Mar at last took a second to catch his breath and observe the area around him. He was covered head to toe in blood, which had mixed with the dusty ground and formed a kind of rust coloured crust that clung to him. The Free Kingdom villagers had forced the Imperials out of the square, and a few had continued further out into the town, rallying the civilian population for the retribution that was no doubt coming in the form of an Imperial counterattack.
The few who remained behind however, formed an uneven circle around Mar, and had been there for some time, watching his frantic fight with the three Imperials. They hadn’t intervened on his behalf, but they hadn’t helped the Imperials in attacking him either, a surprising amount of restraint considering the stories told of the Chained.
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As the silence between him and the assembled crowd continued Mar darkly wondered if the restraint shown was because they viewed him as an unbeatable monster, and it was cowardice that had stayed their hands. Or was it that their hatred of the Imperials, the more direct threat, had temporarily overcome their hatred towards his kind. The villagers surrounding him held a mix of improvised weapons, such as broom sticks and shovels, and weapons which had clearly been recovered from the slain Imperial foes.
No one moved, those staring at him barely even seemed to breath. Every person there wondering who would be the first to make a move. The fact that Mar hadn’t been buried under a pile of bodies yet was promising, so he decided to sheave his sword, figuring that the risk was worth the potential reward of being able to walk out of the town centre without another fight.
Those surrounding him flinched when he moved but relaxed ever so slightly when he put his sword away. Seeing that the moment to strike was right, a voice called out from the crowd.
“You there, Chained. I believe I owe you a thank you.” Said the voice of a woman.
Mar watched the woman as she moved through the crowd. She was heavily muscled, with the calloused hands of a heavy worker. Old burn marks and scars were lightly sprinkled over her arm’s skin, and her face had the look of a no-nonsense blacksmith. Mar wasn’t sure what to say, so spoke awkwardly and without confidence.
“Ahh, I just didn’t want to watch.” He explained, somewhat lamely. The woman laughed at that, the over the top laugh of someone stressed beyond normal means, the kind of laugh that exploded out of an aching chest. But for someone who’s town was about to be burnt down around her, facing a supposed monster, she was handling everything remarkably well.
“I would have though a beast such as yourself would have delighted in such things.” She replied.
“It was your kind that named me a monster, I have no obligation to live up to the moniker.” Said Mar, spitting on the ground in disgust.
The blacksmith eyed him warily, no doubt finding it easier to believe the stories of Chained being master manipulators then of Mar not being the nightmare the stories claimed him to be. Mar didn’t particularly care if she believed him or not.
“Regardless.” She said with a forced smile. “You’re quite the proficient killer.” She indicated the bodies lying by his feet. “And now the Imps are coming for us. But this time instead of capturing the town they’ll burn it to the ground in some sick fantasy of revenge.” Now it was her time to spit.
She continued. “Those cowards took me in my sleep, without giving me the chance at a fair fight. I have that chance now, thanks in part to your actions. I believe that puts me in your debt, so how about this: You help us kill the Imperials and defend this town, and afterwards we’ll let you walk out of here instead of running.” She stuck her hand forward, willing to shake hands with him to seal the deal. Mar hadn’t shaken anyone’s hand for a very long time. He stretched his arm out hesitantly and accepted the gesture. “You’ve got yourself a deal.” He said.
****
Kalier had taken the chain’s pack with her into the bar area of the Inn and neither of the two owners had followed her. She picked an empty table at the back of the seating area and swept it of crumbs before depositing the pack on the sticky surface. The pack had a neat knot holding it together at the top, and instead of slowly undoing it she simply pulled out her dagger and cut through it in one smooth movement. The sharp skysteel dagger making quick work of the thick rope.
The first item in the pack caused Kalier to let out a sharp whistle. Before the falling revolvers had been common items, manufactured in bulk and ending up in the hands of the masses. Allegedly the weapons had evened the playing field between mages and those untrained in the mystic arts. The revolvers creation had lead to an industrialisation boom as competing countries sort to one up each other through the creation of ever larger factories and machines. The money for which was taken from the mystic academies.
This technological movement and new prioritization of funds disrupted the previous order which had been built upon the backs of well-trained battle mages, who had always been in small supply. If the historical accounts Kalier had read from that time had been accurate, the world had been hurling towards a calamity of their own making, it was only the falling of the clay which had disrupted things to such a degree. As the hunter’s order could trace their roots back to the battlemages of the pre-falling era, when they came into power, they had outlawed weapons such as the one Kalier currently held.
To deny the citizens of the Free Kingdoms such weapons didn’t bother Kalier much, as bullets were inefficient when fighting the Clay when compared to melee weapons. As it took bullets of a calibre larger than a human could carrier and fire to effectively damage them. Whereas swords could cut off limbs and otherwise disable Clay opponents. At least, that’s what the hunter order had taught Kalier, and as she knew nothing about guns, she saw no reason to question this assumption.
Hunter policy would have seen her destroying the historic artifact she held in her own two hands, but she found herself hesitating to do so. The weapon was a work of art, over two hundred years old but still well-oiled and smoothly operating. It was a shining steel design, but had a hand-crafted silver inlay, a floral pattern which extended up from the weapons grip and down along it’s barrel, wrapping around the barrel like a vine growing around a wooden stake.
Kalier fiddled with the weapon for a few moments before managing to open the cylinder and check the bullets within. Of the five bullets the weapon could conceivably hold, only three had been loaded, with two empty chambers representing the possible victims of the lethal weapon she held in her hands. Her hesitation to destroy such an impressive piece of craftsmanship was striped away by duty in the face of those empty chambers. While it may have been beautiful, it was still a weapon, and like a poisonous flower it had to be burnt to the ground. Lightning pooled behind her eyes as she channelled her power, but the desperate ringing of a bell interrupted her. In a town like this, there was only ever one reason why someone would dare to ring the town’s bell like that. With no time to waste Kalier stuffed the gun into her belt before rapidly moving towards the inn’s door. Those who had been drowning their sorrows suddenly moved like a fire had been lit beneath them, the old veterans moving just as fast and almost as smoothly as Kalier towards the door. Haunted eyes stony and prepared to do what was necessary to defend the town against the onslaught they knew was coming.
The sun was high in the sky, with no clouds in sight. A bright summer’s day for the slaughter that was to unfold. Kalier moved towards the guard’s headquarters, which would be responsible for organising the initial resistance. Already she could see runners tearing away from the building, a few mounted horses, most simply had to rely on their own nimble footedness and stamina. They would alert the surrounding towns and, eventually, the Free Kingdoms army themselves. If things went poorly with the defence of the town there would be nothing left by the time any reinforcements arrived.
But Kalier was here, and she wasn’t about to let that happen. The veterans parted before her, recognising her uniform as a hunter, and understanding the importance of that fact in the current context. Those who only saw hunters in the same light as the taxation officers moved out of her way when they recognised the expression she was wearing. It was the sort of look that moved mountains, damned waterways, and got people killed. They found it scary, but if they knew what she was capable of when properly pushed, they would have been terrified.
She entered the guard’s headquarters to a scene of chaos that should have been in a comedic theatre performance and was instead playing out in real life. At the centre of the whirlpool of chaos which saw partially dressed or equipped men and women running around like headless chickens, stood two men, deep in an argument. One was who Kalier assumed to be the captain of the guard, although calling someone a guard captain in a village like this was more a qualifier of age then of skill.
Considering the number of injured veterans at the tavern, Kalier wondered what the guard captain had done (Or hadn’t done) to live to his age without a scratch or obvious scar. The other man was a clean-shaven youth, obviously new to the Free Kingdoms army, but judging from the volume at which he was arguing with a superior officer, not unfamiliar with a fight. His uniform was the dressed down version of an advanced scout. His presence around the village raised several questions, none of which Kalier wanted the answer to.
He looked tired too, heavy bags weighing down his eyes, fatigue obvious in his shoulders when he paused his yelling tirade to listen to the guard captain’s reply. He must have raised the warning about the Clay, as the tree line wasn’t visible from the village. Kalier stepped in once the guard captain stopped talking, taking advantage of the brief pause as the scout inhaled a lungful of air, getting ready to throw it all back at the captain. Intending to use volume to hammer his point home.
“Enough you two, I need a report. How big is the defence force? How close are the trees?” She asked, her voice barely audible over the background noise of an entire town guard getting ready for battle. Kalier had found a stern voice speaking at a lower volume often brought more respect than trying to match the volume of a screaming match. Plus, it was always best to avoid wrestling pigs in mud, as the pig is just going to enjoy it.
It worked, with the two turning to look at her. The scout saluted as soon as he realised who she was. The guard captain, either an idiot or intentionally ignorant, rounded on her with the same fury he had been using to express his displeasure with the scout.
“And who the hell are you?” He huffed.
In response Kalier simply pointed at her eyes. The guard captain made the mistake of looking her in the eyes, and her glare was enough to cause him to follow the scout’s example and salute her.
“Sorry ma’am, we don’t get a lot of hunters around these parts.” He said. Once again, he was either purposely faking ignorance, or his guards hadn’t told him about the two dealings they’d had with her. He would also have had to miss the stir Tarix and her had caused just by arriving at the village.
“We’ve got about a platoon’s worth of guards and veterans.” Continued the guard captain, but Kalier ignored him, instead turning her focus onto the scout. “What’s your name soldier?” She asked. “Sam, Ma’am.” He replied.
“And you raised the alert?” She asked.
Sam looked a little nervous at that, a false alarm could easily cost him his career. The moment passed quickly however, with him puffing out his chest and standing straighter. “Yes ma’am, the trees are heading here from the north-east, I ran here directly from the forest-“ His voice broke for a moment, before he continued.
“B-but I couldn’t stop to warn the farmers out that way. We need to attack the tree line before-“ Kalier held up her hand to stop him, understanding the argument he had been having with the guard captain in an instant.
“No, we need to defend the village, we don’t have the manpower to fight the Clay on an open field, and we don’t have cannons to stop the tree’s even if we did.” Kalier looked towards the guard captain, who simply nodded, confirming the lack of artillery.
She put her hand on Sam’s shoulder, looking him deeply in the eyes. Her gaze softening into a lie of compassion and understanding. It wasn’t that Kalier wasn’t compassionate or understanding, simply that a soft gaze from the woman was the equivalent of saying that the sky would be green tomorrow.
“You followed your training, you did the right thing, but your guilt over that is going to get this whole town killed if you convince any guard members to follow you back out those gates. Shut up, and help me defend this town.” Kalier’s gaze was imploring, understanding, and forgiving. Most importantly of all however, it was ordering.
Sam hesitated, not sure whether to listen to her or to start screaming at her like he had been with the guard captain. But at heart he was a good man, and good men find it hard to scream at people who are behaving perfectly reasonably. Of course, had he not been a good man, he wouldn't have been screaming in the first place. In the end he just nodded, trying to swallow the knot that was suddenly caught in his throat.
"There were children…" He said, weakly.
Kalier's gaze returned to its natural stony expression.
"There are always children."