[Mkguild] Winter Assault - Murikeer's sections, pt 3

[Ryx]

Part 3


December 26, 706 – Time indeterminate

Keepers, the first he had seen of any number since the battle began, stared
at him from beyond the barricade of bric-a-brac hastily erected across the
corridor before the doorway to the Long House, crossbows held at the ready and
pointed at his chest.  They did not
challenge his approach as he stalked down the corridor littered with human and
lutin corpses.  He was a Keeper, one of
the countless many that had staggered toward their line seeking any shelter
from the invasion they could find.  He
carried Llyn’s charred remains in his arms and their gazes took that grievous
ruin in as he passed wordlessly between them.

It was a haggard line of weary, battle toughened stares that watched his
approach without wavering.  All were as
soiled by combat as he was, their fur and hair and flesh blood spattered and
bruised.  The toll of death and
destruction seemed to have been paid from the depths of their hollow stares.  Those that had come seeking to exact some
small measure of that toll lay littered along the corridor, bodies stiffened
with cold and injurious death, fletched with arrow and bolt and carved by
blade.  Not all were lutin or northern
mercenary; some where those who had paid the ultimate and final price to defend
their home but had not yet been recovered.  None moved, no telltale mist of fading breath trailed up from gaping
muzzles or mouths.  Murikeer only saw
vague forms, human and animal, in the fog of his own heavy burden of body and
soul, yet he felt a kinship of sorrow with them.

One said something through an arrowloop beside the door and it opened as
Murikeer came to it.  He recognized the
towering, read haired Amazonian woman beyond, but it was but a dim spark
somewhere in the distant back of his mind.  The woman took him in with a single glance, gasping quietly as she saw
the ruin he carried.  Others crowded
toward the door, a susurrus of stunned whispers passing among them as Murikeer
staggered into the center of the Long House.  The crowd parted a moment later Misha Brightleaf, their commander and
surrogate father figure to many, strode through them with a furious snarl.

Spying Murikeer his ears came up in surprise, and then backed in horror at
what he carried.  His muzzle wrinkled in
a pained moue and he staggered to a halt.  George, the master of Metamor’s regular patrol, quietly stepped forward
to take Murikeer’s burden.  “I’ll take
her, Muri.” He growled softly as he took her slight weight into his arms.  Murikeer rested one hand upon the body and,
with a slow curl of his fingers, gathered up the citrine from her breast and
lifted it away.  George favored him with
a consoling nod and withdrew solemnly.  The crowd parted for him while others, Misha among them, stood
unmoving.  The skunk’s distant gaze
slowly took in the crowd and finally came to rest on the fox and a sudden dark
rage clutched at his heart, catching his breath in his lungs.  This is where she should have been, with
those like her capable of carrying the fight.  Instead it had fallen upon him, a mere boy not yet into his second
decade of life, to carry on in her stead.  Someone laid a gentle, staying hand upon his shoulder.

He lived, and she had died.  Not only
died, but been killed by his own pupil!