Blood and Ashes

[_Stigwig 1510]

BLOOD AND ASHES

 

 

Ifan Ben-Mezd looks up to the fallen Krag | circa 1641

 

His mouth tasted of blood. He raised a pair of hesitant fingers up to his lips, worn tips dragging away to reveal blood.

 

The air tasted of blood. All about him the air hung heavy, enveloping him and warping the sharp sounds of battle, the fresh clang of steel that should be ringing in his ears, to sound further away. He was distant, separate, enveloped in his own floating bubble of death. He wrenched the spear from the corpse of the man before him, blood flying in a long arc to cover the company of men that stormed past him, a lofted banner marking them as Lucienists. They looked disgusted, but they were not true killers. Experienced and bloodthirsty if men were not of their faith, but they did not kill as Adelmar did.

 

Adelmar worked art. He threw himself forwards, dancing across the cobbled roof of yet another layer of the fortress as he spun the spear about him. He had learnt the forms as a man who was still yet a boy, barely past thirteen years of age and clumsy with the weapon. Now he embraced them, moving as a man who had known the weapon for his entire life and - more than just knowing it - loved it. He glanced up as another body fell, licking his lips.

 

The world tasted of blood and ashes.

 

---

 

 

Reiter forces cross towards the docks of the Ben Quadinaros.

 

Their hooves pounded on the softly packed earth as the armoured column rode cross-country, eyes scanning the horizon warily. They were not on friendly land, if any patch of earth could be called friendly for mercenaries. A few hour’s more travel, the sun slowly inching its way further away from the men, bathing the world in shadows that danced and fled from Lans’ torch. They were not soldiers to be perturbed from a hint of darkness, though, driven forwards by their golden idol into the darkest hours of the night.

 

Finally they crested a slight hill, a rolling meander of the land that had dipped and curved so pleasantly on the journey, to reveal a glorious sight.

 

Beneath them was an enormous ship, the size of an armada, covered in a sea of shimmering lights. A thousand torches danced in the night, a weave of stars to rival the sky above, that illuminated lines upon lines of mailed men, nervous hands clasping spears or swords or axes or hammers or any one of an endless list of items bound to serve one purpose, death to Norland. It had been a rallying cry for many of them, a driving force to encourage thousands of men to take up arms. Here and there wandered a man in pure white except a cross that spoke of blood, a Lucienist knight. Norman reined the group in with a lofted hand, instructing the men to dismount and continue onwards.

 

An enormous mast towered up above the men, covered in climbing soldiers and lines of rope that only served to confuse the untrained eye. Before the Reiters lay the Ben Quadinaros, the greatest ship of war ever seen on Axios, and ready to burn a kingdom.

---

 

 

Billy duels an unknown Norlander by the docks of the city.

 

“KEEP GOING!” the words echoed in Adelmar’s ringing ears as he drove himself onwards across the bridges, a cloud of arrows blacking the sky above them; a world of darkness; of ash, and blood. Another Reiter yelled the roar behind him - Berenfroy perhaps - but the words had little effect on Adelmar. He heaved himself to the side of the bridge, hardly injured yet almost dead from the fatigue of the fight, and glanced over the side to witness a raging battle.

 

A pack of Norlanders had somehow left the Krag; he was unsure how, and he knew his treacherous eyes would hardly tell true when they saw soldiers seeming to glide across the sky above them, but they fought ferociously. He admired their killing, its brutal honesty and its desperation, as the world burned about them. Even with their city, their homes, destroyed they fought on, clinging desperately to life as a man might hold on the very last pieces of a falling cliff. He blinked, wiping away the sweat with a gloved hand, as he watched another man, scarf covering the upper half of his face, driving down towards the stairs. He did not stop for the first man, nor the second, as he flung an enormous warhammer about him with an uncaring, indolent attitude.

 

Behind that lone warrior came a whole force of men, tattered banners telling the story of a dozen lords and nations, that drove away this fledgling force into the water. Surely their numbers had fallen in the castle before them - surely they were safe? Even as he spoke the words his world contracted, vision shattering apart as he gaped at the scene before him. A corpse - what had been a corpse but a moment earlier, but now seemed to fight with vehemence despite its gaping wounds - had risen up and struck at Reginald, throwing him towards the water and leaving a bloody smear against the river surface.

 

Adelmar forced himself to his feet with shaking hands, dragging out his blade with a soft rasp of steel.

 

---

 

 

 

His hands shook again. A fractured sky hung above him, disturbingly silent. The battle had long since passed them by as the triumphant soldiers returned to sack the city. He had other goals, though - more men to kill, more blood to taint the ground, more ashes to fill the sky and cloud his eyes. The Norlander’s body lay on the ice before them, though he was not sure why it was ice now and not water, as he closed his eyes to avoid the scene of death, to silence the throbbing in his ears.

 

They had pursued the would-be assassin all around the base of the Krag, watching the elf dart away from them again and again. He had fired arrows and flung himself across the dirt, slamming his blade again and again at the man’s cracked helmet until he finally realised that the elf was dead. Revenge was the dream of a foolish man, short-sighted, but it was still a sweet thing, however fleeting. He cradled that prospect, the idea of revenge, as the sky turned black around him.

 

He hung back as the rest of the Reiters threw themselves into the city, taking their payment in the forms of relics and armour from the Norlandic vault. He looked over the battlefield instead, the enormous piles of bodies across the bridge, the corpses that floated their way across the dark river below. He looked up at the ash that fell from the sky, lofted and dragged apart by a thousand different roaring fires, and embraced the passing of a nation.

[Legoboy7984 3155]

Sylvestre would look at the dead Norlanders smiling.

"Deus Vult."

[TankM1A2 840]

 

The Reiter Company of Calais, ready to set sail upon the Ben Quadinaros, after a long day's struggle upon the walls of the Krag, circa 1641.

[Anderssn 1115]

Reginald the Reiter could be seen sweeping down with his winged-jetpack. At least one enemy, the Dwarf King died by his blade before he was struck down by a stealthy rogue.

[JEEGK 1367]

Just now, TankM1A2 said:

 

The Reiter Company of Calais, ready to set sail upon the Ben Quadinaros, after a long day's struggle upon the walls of the Krag, circa 1641.

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Upvote

 

abcabcabcabc

Arthur held his comment, being forced to capture the photography. 

[GDPR 014 48]

This played in the background

[devvy 1348]

Elizaveta anticipated the return of Adelmar anxiously, unable to do much with herself until she knew whether or not he was safe.

[TJBMinecraft 821]

Thomas de Hartcold would return home from the siege, blood covering his armour, some of it his own the rest from the Norlanders he slew. A arrow still embedded in his shoulder as he limped through the door of his house.

 

"Deus Vult!"

 

 

[Taketheshot 3834]

4 minutes ago, devvy said:

Elizaveta anticipated the return of Adelmar anxiously, unable to do much with herself until she knew whether or not he was safe.

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Upvote

 

Phillip raises an eyebrow to

The woman, seeing as she had been present in the battle wearing carbarum armor.

[devvy 1348]

4 minutes ago, Taketheshot said:

Phillip raises an eyebrow to

The woman, seeing as she had been present in the battle wearing carbarum armor.

0

Upvote

 

Elizaveta would never go into battle, perhaps Phillip must've mistaken her for someone else.. She thought, of course.

[GDPR 014 48]

1 minute ago, devvy said:

Elizaveta would never go into battle, perhaps Phillip must've mistaken her for someone else.. She thought, of course.

0

Upvote

 

avenel wonders where his atronach daughter is

[Swgrclan 2682]

Thramarath the Orc intercepts the mental conveyencies of individuals such as Philip, Elizveta and Avenel, and chides them as though a parent would a child for communicating through a medium that stands beyond the world's fourth dimensional wall.

[GDPR 014 48]

Just now, Swgrclan said:

Thramarath the Orc intercepts the mental conveyencies of individuals such as Philip, Elizveta and Avenel, and chides them as though a parent would a child for communicating through a medium that stands beyond the world's fourth dimensional wall.

0

Upvote

 

avenel wonders about thramarath the azdrazi

[Ford 1996]

Maaz tends to his axes, washing them and sharpening them as needed for whichever battle would occur next. 

 

"Norland is truly red, now."

[Vetren54 368]

"Serves them right,"  huffs Tiberius as he reads news of the Crusaders' victory.  "The Red Scoundrels marched on Orenia, slaughtered its common-folk, and showed their true face as aggressors and villains of Axios. But now GOD renders his justice."