[Mkguild] Winter Assault - Murikeer's sections, pt 6

[Ryx]

Part 6 and final.


Thorne prized a scroll from the cylinder and unrolled it as he warily
watched the skunk and the circling armada of debris.  “If, boy, if.” He glared over the scroll and
began intoning the glyphs inscribed upon it, “Does he?”  He taunted as the scroll began to smoke.  The glyphs inscribed upon it began to burn
through and Murikeer read them easily, even backwards through the thin vellum,
and called to his mind their direct opposing wards.

“Enough to send you scurrying to hide at the hem of Nasoj’s robes.” The
skunk returned and swept his hand toward Thorne.  The orbiting cloud of debris hurtled toward
Thorne as the man completed his intonation but, rather than pounding
fruitlessly against his shields, froze between them in a glyph pattern.  Thorne’s incantation drove against the
hovering ward and it collapsed with his spell even as the scroll crumbled to
ashen dust.  Murikeer sneered at the
man’s frustrated moue.

“Simple, pawn, simple.” The skunk taunted in return before rotating his arm
back and flinging his second war hammer with magic augmented strength.  The steel length of lethal fabrication
tumbled through the air and slammed into the shields an inch from Thorne’s
brow.  Hot metal sprayed from the weapon
as the energies of the shield reduced it to slag.  Murikeer reached out his magical touch for
another hammer and it, too, committed metallurgical suicide against the mage’s
shields.  Weapon after weapon lurched
from charred, skeletal hands in ballistic animation.  Time and again they melted to slag as Thorne
fought to maintain his shields, unable to counterattack lest just one sunder
his shields and find its way to his flesh.

“Now you will die more slowly, for Llyn and Heiorn.”  Murikeer danced back and braced himself as
Thorne charged forward with a furious snarl.  His dagger was a blinding cat’s claw slashing back and forth.  Bright sparks of orange white fury spalled
from Murikeer’s shields as he was forced back pace after pace.  Weapons swirled in the air around them as the
two clashed with furious anger.  Molten
metal sang as it spattered against cold stone and set fresh fires where it
landed upon wood, but Thorne’s shields would not fall.  Face to face Murikeer could see the sweat
marring the mage’s brow despite the biting cold that gripped the remains of the
corridor.  Slowly color was coming back
to the stones as Metamor’s magical energies flowed back into it but, like a man
dying of thirst while upon an ocean, Murikeer could not reach out and grasp it.

Abruptly he lashed out a foot and hammered a kick to Thorne’s gut.  The defensive energies of both mages flared
titanically, sending tendrils of blue-white and searing sun-gold licking at the
walls around them, and Thorne let out a pained grunt and fell back.  Murikeer pressed his momentary advantage and
leaped at his foe with bare hands.  Energies flared and sizzled as his defenses, focused only on his hands,
overwhelmed the human’s shields.  Robes
and flesh tore under the stone-shaping strength of those claws and the mage
yelped in fresh pain with each assault.  He parried with his dagger futilely but was unable to pierce the shields
on Murikeer’s hands.  One angry swipe
opened the human’s cheek to the bone and he nearly succumbed to the deadly
force of the blow.

He spun and retreated, reaching up to pull down a decayed wooden beam as he
ran beneath it.  Murikeer’s pursuit was
halted as the stones and wood crashed down into the corridor between them.  There were not so many that he could not
navigate the devastation and pushed his way through before even the last stone
had come to rest.  He found Thorne leaning
against a wall beyond holding his torn face together with one hand.  His gray eyes were red rimmed with fury as he
turned on the skunk.  “For this… for this
you will die!” he bellowed and launched himself at Murikeer again.

Murikeer jumped back onto a rocking stone and then upward, lashing out with
his feet and hammering Thorne’s shields once again.  His magic was drained heavily by the need to
reinforce his shields enough to penetrate Thorne’s defenses.  Thorne lurched as the lighter skunk’s paws
slammed into his chest, the tips of stout claws rending the heavy furs and
velvets of his robes to gouge flesh.  Their tips raked savagely across the bones of his breast.  He howled in fresh pain and anger and
staggered away from the assault.  Murikeer tumbled onto the stone and let loose a yelp of his own as he
came down upon the uneven rocks beneath him.  Fresh pain lanced across his back as hastily mended burns tore open.

Thorne clutched at his savaged breast and gasped for breath.  When his hands came away they were stained
red with his own blood.  Murikeer
scrambled up from the stones and reached out to snatch up another weapon.  Though seared the wooden shaft was cool and
stout in his grasp; the curiously anchored head tapered to a savage tip.  He glanced at it and a snarling grin crossed
his muzzle.  It was an ice-axe favored by
the men of the north, very much like the stone pick he had also used during his
time north of the mountains that protected the southern kingdoms from Nasoj’s
grasp.  That axe was still in his chamber
and, for the most brief of moments, he lamented not having brought it with
him.  He hefted the sharp pointed pick
comfortably in his hand and advanced upon the human.

With a furious snarl of his own Thorne turned and darted through a door,
kicking it shut behind him.  A placard
upon the door slapped woodenly and one end fell loose from the hooks that held
it up.  Murikeer tilted his head slightly
to mark the simple pictograph; a lantern.  Beside it was a torch bisected by a red line.  The room beyond was a dead end, no matter how
Kyia moved the rooms and corridors about it would always be a dead end.
It was a room for storing lamp oil.  There would only ever be one way in, clearly marked with simple to
understand pictograms to keep the careless or unwary at bay.  And, as such, there would only ever be one
way out.

“You cannot escape me, Thorne!” the skunk roared and slammed the steely tip
of the ice-axe against the wood.  The
placard jumped again and slipped loose of the remaining hook to fall upon the
floor at Murikeer’s feet.  Again and
again he hammered the axe into the wood of the door, first gouging it and then
splintering it.  He could hear Thorne
chanting furiously beyond the barrier that kept Murikeer from his
vengeance.  “You will scream!” a plank
broke loose and he yanked at it, leaning close to the door to snarl at the man hastily
scrawling a protective circle on the floor.  “Scream, do you hear me?!”  With a
final yank the board snapped from its cross member and Murikeer spied the heavy
barrel of lamp oil pushed up against the door from within.
The barrel shattered easily under the skunk’s furious, magically enhanced
strength when he brought the axe down upon it.  He kicked the door savagely and it slammed open, breaking more planks
and leaning rakishly as Murikeer pushed his way through, striding heedlessly
through the flood of lamp oil spilled from the sundered barrel.  The surge of thick, cloyingly acrid oil
surged across the bounding lines of Thorne’s circle and obliterated them.  Filling shelves along both walls were smaller
casks of oil and, beneath them, more heavy barrels.  Murikeer swung his axe sideways and the
tapered steel tip bit into another barrel, collapsing the stave and sending
another rushing wave of oil across Thorne’s aborted efforts.  “You can not escape.” Murikeer rasped
breathlessly.  He was spent; it was down
to muscle against muscle.

Thorne stood and turned to face him with his dagger held at the ready.  One side of his face was a bloody ruin.  A flap of flesh hung down along the line of
his jaw exposing the bone of his cheek.  The man’s arrogant gray eyes were white rimmed with hatred and fear as
he saw no way out save past his former teacher.  “For Llyn.” Murikeer snarled and raised the axe to swing it downward in
a vicious strike.  Writhing like a snake Thorne
twisted out of the way and thrust out a foot.  Murikeer grunted and staggered back as it slammed into his stomach,
almost dropping his axe as he paws slipped and he pitched forward.  He dug in his claws with a snarl and pushed
himself to one side, crashing into the shelves and rattling the casks.

Seizing his momentary advantage Thorne turned and seized the skunk by his
throat, lifting and hammering him back against the shelves solidly.  Wood cracked and casks fell to the
floor.  “Die!” the human snarled, his
speech slurred by the hole in his cheek.  Pulling Murikeer away from the shelf he slammed him into it again and
raised the dagger, “My phial will be no more concern with you dead.”  Casks tumbled from the shelf and shattered as
Murikeer gasped and clutched at Thorne’s arm.  He swung futilely with the ice-axe but Thorne merely batted it away.

That took one of his hands, however, and he could not block the strong leg
that the skunk drove against his torn chest and pushed.  With a roar Thorne released his prey and
leapt back to clutch at the fresh cuts left by the skunk’s powerful claws.  Murikeer collapsed, choking, and fell to his
knees.  Snarling Thorne lashed out with a
foot to connect with the coughing skunk’s ribs.  He was smashed against a barrel and grasped at it to regain his
feet.  A wild swing of the axe sent
Thorne scuttling back once more.  “If you
kill me,” Murikeer hacked past the crushing pain in his throat, “the phial will
sever you.”  He pushed himself upright
and leered across at the man.  “You know
it; the nature of the phial protects the Master.  Where the student slays him, that student’s
magic is forever severed.”  He hammered
one hand against his breast, “I am your master!” he bellowed,
sweeping one of the casks off of the shelf and hurling it across the small
room.

Thorn dodged the flying cask easily and it shattered against others on the
shelf behind him.  Lamp oil spattered his
back and poured to the floor from two others shattered by the impact.  The sand in which they were nested turned
dark as the oil soaked it.  The room
reeked of the acrid fuel.  “If I kill you
by my magic, fool.” Thorne pointed the tip of the dagger at him, “Not if I
carve out your heart with my own bare hands.”  He lunged toward Murikeer but the skunk dodged and hammered the haft of
his weapon against the man’s shins.  He
let the blow knock the axe away and used that inertia to spin and aim a savage
sweeping blow at the mage.

Unfortunately Thorne sensed the attack and dodged hastily out of reach.  A barrel cracked loudly as the staves
sundered under Murikeer’s furious blow.  He tried to pull the axe back but he could not; the head was snarled in
a tangle of broken barrel staves and collars.  He swept his free hand toward the far wall, “Look about you Thorne.” He
snarled, abandoning the axe as Thorne circled away from him.  “Where are the doors?  Where are the casements?  The room is sealed.”  Murikeer smiled with a sinister show of sharp
teeth.  “Kyia is free, the power of your
dark allies is broken.  Your great leader
has failed.”  He slipped the blue stone
dagger from his belt and tightened his hand upon the use polished bone
hilt.  “Again.”

With a bellow of rage Thorne charged down the length of the room and
Murikeer tried to dodge.  One fur garbed
arm wrapped around him as Thorne overtook his futile attempt to slip past and
both of them crashed over a fallen barrel.  The wood creaked loudly and, with a series of popping cracks, yielded
under their combined weight.  Murikeer
crashed down through a font of oil and Thorne came down upon him.  Blood spattered across his face as the man
leaned the full measure of his muscular weight down upon his upper chest and
throat.  His lower body crashed down on
Murikeer’s hips and pinned his legs.  “Nasoj was a fool.” He spat angrily.  From the corner of his eye Murikeer spied the wicked curved edge of the
mage’s ensorceled blade.  He writhed
futilely under the greater weight upon him but was pinned in place.  With his hands he raked at Thorne’s torn
breast but, other than snarling in pain, Thorne continued to hold him
fast.  “A fool who I will slay as well,
when I am done with you.”

Murikeer writhed and gagged against the pressure upon his chest, crushing
the air from his lungs and throat.  The
glistening shimmer of polished steel drew closer to his face and he tried to
twist his head aside but he was immobilized.  “Do you what to know, boy, what I did to your precious Master?” Thorne’s
words came in a slurred burble through his torn cheek.  Blood gurgled from the injury with each word
and leaked past his lips.  “I carved out
his eyes.”  Thrashing wildly Murikeer dug
his claws into the torn flesh of the man’s ribs but it was a futile
gesture.  The dagger touched the corner
of his left eye and, with a quick thrust and twist, Murikeer’s world exploded
in blinding white agony.  He shrieked at
the searing pain as the steel tore into the vulnerable flesh of his eye and
gouged the bony socket.  “I carved out
his eyes!” Thorne crowed triumphantly as his prey howled.  Shifting his weight he pushed himself up onto
his feet and stepped back.  Murikeer
clutched at his face and writhed on the floor, yowling incessantly until he
could offer no more voice to his agony.  “Just like yours.  With this very
dagger.” He held it up and turned it slowly in his hand, the steel drinking in
the blood that seeped down its length.

“Don’t you see, blind boy?” Thorne chortled in maddened hilarity as he
pressed his good hand to his torn cheek, “They sent me, not my inept sire.  The southern mage guilds sought to use me, to
break your precious master’s wards from within.”  He leaned forward and delivered a savage kick
to Murikeer’s breast but the skunk was beyond noticing such a small pain as
broken ribs.  “And I did.  He was guildless, he violated their laws, so
they sent me.  ME!  And I succeeded!”  Kicking the skunk again he pushed him onto
his back and pressed the weight of his foot down upon Murikeer’s chest as he
leaned down over him.  “I backed the old
fool into a corner and I carved out his
eyes.” He leaned down and swept the dagger slowly back and forth before
Murikeer’s remaining eye, “And when you escaped, I returned and killed them, as well.  Those inept old fools never knew that they had
loosed their own death upon themselves.”  He stood and paced away again, to the far wall of the room to touch the
wall with his hand as if seeking some secret lever that would open an unseen
door.  “You taught me nothing.”

Murikeer rolled and levered himself to his knees, blinded both by an agony
too deep to be fully understood and the loss of an eye.  He leaned over a fallen barrel and tilted his
head slightly to glare at the man’s back with what little vision remained.  “No,” he rasped and Thorne turned, “I taught
you nothing, then.”  He reached for his last dregs of magic and
moaned as a fresh lance of pain blossomed behind his eye.  He had no magic left to reach.  With one hand he cast about for his amulets,
his charms, those things he had invested some iota of his power to sustain
other spells.  In a small pouch tied
securely to his belt he felt a hard lump.  “But I can teach you something now.”  His claws made short work of the thin
material and the contents spilled into his hand.

He brought it around before himself and gazed into his palm.  A gleaming, bloodied citrine winked up at him
with a tiny dim glimmer of inner warmth; Llyn’s amulet.  Grimshori,
grant me your strength, he prayed fervently as he reached into the stone
for that tiny spark.  “What can you teach
me in your dying moments, peasant?” Thorne spat as he strode toward his
vanquished foe.  Murikeer fought through
the waves of agony that flared in his skull as he reached for the tiny spark of
magic invested in the stone.  Slowly he
raised his head to meet Thorne’s hard gray gaze.

“How to die.” He rasped at length, shifting the magics of the stone, and
casting it to the floor.  The dim glimmer
became a virulent red glow like the eye of an angry god.  The golden stone darkened to orange, and then
a deep ruby red before shattering with a scintillating crack.  Tiny shards of stone trailed away and where
they flew fire followed.  Switching the
enchantments, meant to keep Llyn warm and her scent damped, to pure fire was
the last that Murikeer could accomplish.  Before darkness swam up and snatched him away he managed one, final,
word; “Screaming.”

Thorne gaped at the tiny blossom of fire that opened from the shattered
stone like a burning flower and lurched back in horror.  But there was nowhere to go; unyielding stone
met his back as he retreated and he let out a last howl of terror and pain as
the room was consumed in roaring fire.

----


Sir Haestan reined his huge war horse to a halt beyond the gates of Metamor
Keep’s inner wards.   All about him the
last dying sounds of battle were fast becoming fewer and more distant as his
men-at-arms, those he could hastily call up in the middle of the Yule night
celebrations, roved through the city routing the last small pockets of Lutin
resistance.  Despite being one of Duke
Thomas’ southernmost, and smallest, vassalages the Earl was one of the first to
arrive.  He had pushed his men cruelly
hard through blizzard and darkness but none had gainsaid his urgency.  The man had fought for the Duke before, side
by side during Nasoj’s last bid to conquer the keep, and paid the same price as
any; he had become a moose.  His stalwart
steed was a monstrous beast and one of the few such that could bear his not
inconsiderable weight.

He gazed upon the walls of the Keep and listened to the battles being waged
within by the defenders even as those marshaled from the outlying baronies liberated
the outer town of Euper and moved on to begin clearing the small city within
the Keep’s outer bailey walls; Keeptowne.  He wondered what was befalling those within the Keep itself.  He had only cleared the area outside the
gates an hour before and had yet to feel secure enough with the town to press
inward to the Keep itself.  A footman
trotted up to him and he turned his great, antlered head to gaze down at the
man.  His large brown ears swiveled
forward to focus upon the man, “What news, Lorian?”

“The greater force of Lutins has been routed, milord.” The footman reported
after a hasty salute.  He was travel
weary and battle worn but strong enough not to show his weakness.  One side of his helm had been savagely dented
and he doffed it as he spoke to his liege.  “Landon is marshalling our levies at the southern gate just within ward
from the Killing Fields.  Do you wish him
to hold it and prevent further escape?”

“No, Lorian, let the green vermin flee.” Haestan intoned in the slow, florid
voice Nasoj’s curses had left him with.  Like himself his son had not escaped the dark mage’s vile touch; he had
become a northern deer.  “Have him gather
his men and join me here.”  He looked to
the Keep again briefly as he heard a series of resounding crashes.  Dust and flame gouted from a series of
casement windows along one wall.  He
tapped his steed lightly with one hoof-like foot and directed him toward the
gate.  Lorian trotted along beside him
and donned his battered helm.  “How many
lost?”

Lorian, watching the Keep in curiosity just as his liege did, smiled under
the shadows of his helm.  “None,
sire!  A few modest injuries but nothing
that will be lasting.”  The pair made
their way through the yawning outer portal and advanced warily into the
courtyard of the inner ward.  Nothing moved
on the debris littered snow.  He spied
the odd spear or arrow or, gruesomely, a hand or leg thrusting up from the pink
stained snow.  Beside the gate lay the
corpse of some sort of huge humanoid festooned with countless arrows.  Lorian gave it an experimental poke with his
bloodied sword but it did not move.  More
fire roared from the casements some forty feet above the ground and the twosome
gaped up.  Whatever was going on within
the Keep’s shifting walls was a battle of some horrific force.  Tendrils of crackling energy licked outward
from one of the casement windows.  “What
devilry are they about up there, sire?” the footman asked in awe.

“Magic.” Haestan snorted with a shake of his antlers, “Potent magic.  I can only trust that –“ he broke off as a
man leaned from one of the casements briefly before disappearing.  A moment later he reappeared to leap from the
window onto a rooftop below.  Haestan
drew his sword and spurred his mount forward.  Lorian pelted along in the massive stallion’s wake.  The man landed hard on the roof and yelped in
pain before the shifting snow slid down, bearing him along, to slump from the
eaves.  Haestan cantered up to the drift
in which the man had been half buried face down.  Lorian arrived, panting, a moment later while
the man painfully extricated his bald, heavily tattooed head from the heap of snow.

“He’s a mage, Lorian.” Haestan snorted angrily, “A northern mage.”

Knowing exactly what his liege was saying Lorian stepped forward as the man,
upon hearing them, turned around.  Lorian’s gauntleted fist slammed across his temple before he could utter
a word.  They watched him crumple and the
footman efficiently went about binding his arms and hands securely behind
him.  “Looks like he was in full retreat,
sire.” The man chortled as he gave him an overly firm nudge with one booted
foot.

“It may be that the old girl is pushing them out.” The Earl said laconically
as he craned his head to look up.  Another pair of footmen trotted through the gate and, after a pause to
locate their leader, came to join them.  “See to that vermin, fellows, gag him well and keep him under a sharp
eye.”

“Aye, sire.” One of them quipped breathlessly, “Landon is heading this way
with your men; he abandoned the Killing Fields to the enemy retreat.”

“Smart lad.  Let them go, for now.”
The moose-lord muttered, “No sense wasting ourselves picking slivers from our
ass when there’s a spear in our gullet.”  His mount snorted restively, eager for battle, and lowered his head to
snort at the unconscious human.  His
thick lips twitched and his ears backed as he glared balefully at what he considered
to be an enemy.  Haesten stilled him from
violence with a light touch to his shoulder.  As more men began to trickle into the inner ward and join them they
watched the upper walls for more signs of battle.  They could hear it from one long wing and
somewhere in the depths of the castle proper but no one dared try pushing their
forces inward without overwhelming numbers.

Haestan looked up as a charger trotted through the gawking men and moved to
stand at his side.  He nodded his head to
the slender, light frame of his son.  Landon still had his antlers, he would not shed them until after the
second month of the year, and silver glinted from one broken tine.  “We got one in full retreat, son.” He nodded
toward the mage, who by that time was awake.  The man made no motion to flee or speak around the gag tightly drawn
across his mouth.  Three naked steel
blades were held in ready hands within two paces of where he sat in the
snow.  “Inner fight may be going to
Metamor.”

“We can only hope.” Landon offered in his quiet voice.  The deer’s lightweight chain armor was torn
and bloodied but he still sat proudly upon his steed.  “They have done well outside the walls, our
arrival cemented a victory that was already tipping in their balance.”

Haestan nodded his large head slowly, his brown ears laying to either side
below his broad antlers, as he cast his gaze upward once again before looking
to his son, “Would that those more north of us were as swift.  How many banners did you count on the field?”

“Too few, father.” Landon sighed heavily with an expressive frown and a
twitch of his ears, “Far too few for the lands that Thomas holds.”  He shifted in his saddle, “I saw many who
bore heraldry of other houses but fell in under banners already here.  They came without leave of their liege
lords.”
The moose nodded slowly, “Find those who came of their own, they deserve
more praise than a cold march home.”  He
heaved a deep-chested sigh, 


“Perhaps there should be a reckoning in light of
their recalcitrance.” Haeston shrugged his broad shoulders expressively as he
cast his gaze upward again.  He gaped in
surprise for there was a door in the wall that he had not seen previously.  The wood was splintered and holes gaped from
broken planks.  He heard his men gasp as
well for, despite many of them scanning the walls for any sign of activity,
none had apparently seen the door appear where there had been none a moment
before.  He tilted his head in some
confusion at the odd placement of the door.  In the years he had served under Thomas he had never seen the castle
spirit put a door on the outer walls.

“After this father, his grace will be too hard pressed merely recover –“ his
voice died, tall ears springing up and forward in awe, as a puff of flame
scorched through gaping holes in the planks of the door.  Flame rushed from beneath it and ran down the
facing wall like water and then, with a suddenness that made hardened soldiers
and steady war mounts alike start in surprise, the door exploded in a fountain
of flame.  Sundered wood spiraled through
the air trailing flames and smoke and a shape, identifiable as a body only by
the flailing limbs and tail, hurtled from whatever hell consumed the room
behind that door.  The tumbling shape
disappeared behind the very building that their prisoner had fallen upon.  Landon and a dozen soldiers darted around
behind the building while Haestan looked up in numb shock.

“Father!” Landon’s voice called from behind the building.  Haestan swung down from his steed and handed
off the reigns before trotting in the footprints left behind by the
soldiers.  He found them circled around a
deep drift in the space between outer buildings while Landon knelt beside a
steaming depression in the snow.  Snow
crunched under his heavy feet as he approached.  Soldiers moved aside and he waded into the drift to look down into the
hollow.

In its depths was a blackened body that moved feebly despite its grievous
wounds.  Not one spare measure of the
unfortunate’s body had escaped the flames and seared flesh showed pink under
charred fur.  One eye was an empty,
ruined pit and the other was so badly burned the Earl feared that the hapless
soul would never see again.  “He still
lives?” the moose lord grunted in stunned surprise.  One of the soldiers took a step forward, his
helmet doffed under one arm, and gazed down at the piteous sight.

“Milord, shall I end the poor soul’s misery?” the man asked solemnly.  His hand rested on the hilt of his sword but
he had not drawn it.  In more peaceful
times he served as the Earl’s headsman, when such extremes were required, or
butcher otherwise.

“Akkala’s grace, no, Ramis!” Haestan snorted irritably, “Someone find Aivergne!  We need her healing touch, now!”
he bellowed.  Soldiers scattered and
Landon swung back up onto his prancing charger.

“She is tending our men near the Keep gates, I will bring her swiftly.”  With that he spun his mount and disappeared
in a fountain of snow.  Haestan knelt to
touch the fallen Keeper’s chest lightly.  Whatever sacrifice had brought the unrecognizable man to such extremes
was something for the tales of true Bards, he felt.  The fallen soul had strode through some fiery
hell and survived, that alone was a miracle wrought by the very gods.

He turned his head slightly to look back over his shoulder at the cluster of
men gaping down at the torched Keeper.  Someone had even thought to haul along their prisoner and even that
man’s pale eyes looked haunted.  “The
rest of you, pray.” He intoned, “Whatever gods you cleave to, let them hear of
this fellow’s plight.”
 End!



      

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