The Ballad of Blood

[KidKrinkles 2044]

A man on a crate, old and sagely, sits down and pulls out a clean, new, book. He smiled with withered lips and held it up for all to see.

"This is a new story, everyone's heard of the old tales of heroes- but here's one for the ages. Few stories are recorded in Asulon, unlike Aegis, I would think... or perhaps I just find too few. But enough rambling, here is the story of a man named Blood."

A group of people gather round and crowd the old man to hear of the untold tale.

The Ballad of Blood~

Have you ever heard of the Ballad of Blood? It’s neither the name of a battle nor the name of a deed but the name of a man whose story is sad.

Blood was a man of selfless virtue and discipline who wore a mask to hide his face from his foes. While his quarrels and enemies sought out his identity he pulled them one by one and cut them up.

In a place called Salvus, a city in Solace, one might see the irony indeed, for Salvus and Solace gave no peace to those who sought it so frivolously. The guards were corrupt and the criminals were many and men and women disappeared in the night. Their screams fell on deaf ears but a man heard

their cries and thus donned a man in a mask with a knife.

There was a band named the Black Brotherhood who lured the unsuspecting and the unwilling to their depths and their hole. Filth flowed among them and virtues died in darkness while women felt steel part skin from their bone and the homes went empty forever more.

Blood walked to the Palace and met a man named Lancel and the princess he kept at his feet. She was fathering his bastard unwilling and unhappy and the two turned to Blood with some fright.

Now Lancel and Blood have both had their battles; the two have come close steel on steel, for the man was a villain who crippled Blood’s cousin for loving his sister so fair. He scowled at the man and said, “Why shouldn’t I gut you?” with ice in his voice and his veins. But Blood stood before him with innocence and honor and said, “I mean to rid the city of its plights. A pack of rats; rapists and murderers gather in the darkness down below you and will pull you down with them if you don’t act.”

Lancel only scoffed, “I’ve heard of no such thing, I’ll have none it.” “But I will,” said Kali. Kali was the captive, the princess, the mother, who judged Blood right and true. She said “I will come with you if you promise my safety, on your life limb and neck,” to which he replied, “I do.”

So the two crossed over a waterfall and down past the steps and the short walk was quiet and thoughtful. The woman wondered if she’d made a smart move and Blood wondered if he’d kill a killer.

The two walked to a house, run down, and dark. The roof was half gone and wind rustled through the broken windows. Blood stalked to the door, silent as a ghost, and took a seat in a rotten wood chair.

Moments later came three guards, who looked amongst themselves; they knew Blood and thought him a fair man. They asked what’s the matter, why was Kali with him, and what could they do? Blood thought long and hard and decided his move, “Tell Lancel Kali’s my prisoner, to move fleet and true.” While the guards hesitated, one chimed, “Yes sir”, and the others soon followed away.

He cracked open a bottle of wine he drew from his pack and slipped it under his mask to his lips. The man took a stiff swig of the strong alcohol, liquid courage, some called it for cowards.

A creak was heard and a rug moved aside as a hatch revealed itself in the corner. The face of a young boy the darkened by sadness and grief and shock combined took its toll. He asked, “Who goes there?” cautious and curious and eyeing the duo before him.

“Blood is here,” said the man in the mask, who flung the bottle over his head and crashed down like a comet on the boy’s. The boy tumbled down and landed upside down, who rose to his feet with a dagger. “You’ll pay for that, creaton!” shouted up the boy, with malice, and anger, and confusion. Blood looked down and threw his hand down in a motion, embers of fire landed on the alcohol covered boy.

The child caught aflame and the steel fell from his hands and he screamed in the darkness before him. He brought light to the room and sound to the silent and the echoes rang down corridors of stone and moss and blood and last thoughts for the poor victims who were before him.

While Kali was dazed and bewildered and stumbled to her feet Blood dove in feet first. He landed with a plop the boy had put out the fire and four glints of steel showed themselves. Four men in masks, hoods, cloaks and robes, black as night and stained with blood, with blood dripping form the steel, and blood dripping from their mouths and dripping off the bottom of their masks- they were the Black Brotherhood indeed.

Blood drew out his knife in one slick movement and with his left hand he drew a sphere. He fingered the flash bomb and held the knife close and listened to their taunts and jeers. “You’re a coward and a feel and craven and corpse; you’ll be another cadaver in the pile of the women. A ***** like you shouldn’t hold such steel, but your throat while I shake life from you.”

He paid no heed and he paid no mind and stood and watched them and moved so slightly as to remind them he was alive and present. He turned his head to the side, “I believe we’d met earlier- you were a smiling happy boy. How does one end up with women-slayers?”

The boy shook his head quickly and began to sob, “I didn’t want to… but she kept screaming. They told me to cut her, to kill her, to bleed her, and I did as they asked so here I am.”

Blood shook his head and eyed the boy, “That’s pathetic, killings meant for the wicked. These four men before you will be nothing more than heaps of limbs and blood if only to show you.”

Just as soon as he said it he heard a nose behind him, Kali came to her senses and yelled for help. He moved down quickly, even though she was swollen with child, and ran to the young child’s aid with her hands up. “You don’t need to fight, no one needs to die. Let’s all put our swords away and just move on by.” But the leader of the band pointed to Blood and said, “He’s injured our man- your friend must pay.”

It was a tense hour… day… year… time seemed to stand still in the dark. Over the jeers and cheers and taunts and cries, many footsteps were heard up above. It was a moment later Blood slid to his knee with a knife in his back from a cowardly prince named Lancel. He beckoned to Kali, “Come, let’s go, royalty doesn’t belong with such peasants.”

Blood clenched his left hand and the primer slid to place, and when he let go, everyone’d be blinded. He looked to Kali, “Avert your eyes from my blood body- I’ll buy you the time you need. I may’ve failed now but I only need to die if it saves you, as I swear on my knees… please go.”

Lancel was up the ladder in almost a flash, a hand extended to Kali like god himself- but the woman turned away, “But Blood is okay- he’s a good man, I know it, forgive him!”

Lancel took it like a sting and a thrust at his heart and recoiled and narrowed his eyes. “Treachery is an affront to the Gods, and to me, and to all, for that you deserve to rot in these dungeons.” He looked to the Black Brotherhood, his familiar friends, “Kill them like the others.”

A blade came from the left, a blade came from the right, and another unseen all struck true. Steel bit through flesh and bone and dug deep and rooted Blood in his place, his hands went limp and his eyes became fuzzy through the mask. Even with six painted eyes he couldn’t stay awake or keep sight on the steel held high. It came crashing down and a sudden flash sent the shades sprawling and flying around. A woman’s shriek pierced the bang and boom and flash and then poor Kali had crashed on her stomach.

Blood fell limp to the side and felt some hope hit him- the hatch had flung open in the chaos? Two suits of iron plate landed down with a clang and drew swords to protect Blood from evil. “Drop your weapons, on the floor, and be judged fairly, in the name of Salvus and Oren, we demand peace.”

Perhaps the men ignored them, or they couldn’t hear them, but deaf ears and dumb minds redrew steel. It was another deadlock, four on two, who held the steel at evens and deadlocks. When from behind a third man leapt down and heaved Blood up the ladder and delivered him from darkness.

He pulled him aside, “Wait here, you must”, while blood pooled against his rotted chair. He reached to his bag, left up by the chair, and pulled a bottle, labeled “Wine”, and uncorked it. He eyed the contents of the volatile brew; a ploy for the bottle was “Lye”. The volatile agents that boiled eyes and organs when splashed and drank and made many a man die. He considered the mercy of suicide there- what a mess he’d caused that the cleaning agent would solve if he had only the strength to drink it.

The chaos ensued upstairs and the screams of labor echoed in the wild darkness that lingered below them. Where life was blooming from a woman in labor that joined the screams of the victims of Salvus, the men in iron formed a line and the men in black faced them on the side and encircled them all in the sunlight. And three met three but a fourth snuck by he pulled down his mask and looked Blood in the eye. “I think I’ll stab you in the brain- a more merciful death for one more evil than I.”

Blood lost the will to die- perhaps because such a miserable creature would end such a righteous man as he. He flung his crippled arm up and twisted his body and the Lye flew free to the man. Blood chuckled up blood and it met his white mask and ran down the wood to the end where it dripped. The man grabbed at his face and screamed and spun in place and slipped on the blood back into the darkness. The sounds of mail clanking uselessly on a man’s face isn’t so distinctive but its known his eye boiled- it melted from his head and pooled onto his chest where he took his last breath forever.

So three met three and the iron men fell- slowed in the compact area they fought in. But Blood was not just so willing to die- he crawled on one arm across rotted floor below them. He slid past their feet and made it just from the chaos when someone ran by and grabbed his hand. But rather than the silence of a specter of death clad in black was a plated hand with blood running down it. Blood’s body drug on gravel and blood followed behind them and while he twisted he saw those evil ghouls make their hunt- it was only twenty feet… fifteen feet… ten feet… when iron slammed down between them. They clawed through the bars but the gate was dropped well but a man by a lever clad in leather. He pulled up the cap and eyed the two bloody men, “Come upstairs- we’ll protect you from evil.”

They walked them upstairs and set Blood on the bed and a woman in cloth went to tend them. “Salvus is full of evil; it’s full of chaos and deceivers and cut throats, brigands, and rapscallions. There’s no fouler place in the entire world I’d say, then this pit of hell called Salvus.” The world spun to darkness- much blood had been lost, and Blood came to several weeks later. He pushed himself up off the bed and eyed the man to the side, who slept and kept watch over him.

He shook the man awake and he came to his senses a bit baffled but he chuckled to Blood. “A pleasure to meet you now- my name is Edric. I think we’re going to be friends.”

Blood got to his feet with a hobble and a limp and drew his robe over the scarred skin he wore. He blinked to the man and said, “There’s work to be done.” And Edric replied, “You’re some courageous man…” Over the wall Blood leapt and he landed shortly down and he rolled down a hill so roughly. He hobbled away into the sunset some say, where he continued his war against corruption.

[Chaqery 427]

Excellent read.

A dark little glimpse into the past.

[Kickstarted and Running 965]

Magnus listens to the story of his friend, and his true king, from the shadows and keeps it to memory, wandering away after it is over

[Slic3man 484]

Jester is watching.

[Enthreri 9]

((Good read but it's not a ballad >.>))

[Redbaron™ 690]

(( I only just saw this -.- I liked the read :) But I hope this is from the perspective of Blood/the story teller. ))

[KidKrinkles 2044]

[[ It is from Blood, with a little exaggeration in terms of wording, but its mostly the same content wise. And Ballad of Blood sounds nice. :D

[Redbaron™ 690]

(( Good work! Quite the story ))

[SkyyoBee 249]

Moved to the Great Library. It shall be sorted into appropriate category shortly.