CHAPTER 1.01 - AMBUSHES
A man stands in the centre of a forest clearing. He is breathing heavily, clearly exhausted. Even as he is, broad shoulders slumped, head down in defeat, he still stands well over 6 feet tall. If he were among the trees, he would have blended well. His cloak is predominantly dark green. What might first appear as staining on the fabric resolves on closer inspection as carefully dyed, irregular patches of brown matching the tones of the earth and tree trunks he left so recently. The black wolf-fur collar of the garment blends, shadow-like, with his unruly hair and matted beard. Even the studs on his leather armour have been muted, matte black to prevent stray light from reflecting. He looks elemental, like a denizen of the forest, albeit one harried and fatigued. On a different day this clearing would have offered much to him, a narrow brook collecting into a small pool, silver scales of fish catching the muted morning sunlight from which he seems to be guarding his eyes. His chest heaves, catching his breath, head nodding as his chin is pushed up by the motion.
A moment of silence. The man looks close to collapse. The 8-foot pike, basically an elongated spear with barbs projecting from the wood towards the wickedly sharp head, seems to be keeping him upright like an old man’s staff. Suddenly, his head snaps up. The man’s tired eyes become alert as he hears the snap of a twig off to his left. He stands rigid, breath held, eyes scanning the fringes of the clearing. He sighs as four men emerge from the undergrowth, briskly followed by a fifth. The four are dressed in variations on leather armour, equipped with shortswords, handaxes and – the largest of them – a double-headed battleaxe. The slight, trim man behind them, however, stands out from the group and his surroundings. His town clothes are smartly tailored, his white goatee trimmed, and he holds no obvious weapons. While his lackeys are dressed for autumn in the wilds, he has a short, scarlet cloak draped over one shoulder, intricate patterns in gold thread glinting in the sunlight.
The tired man squares his shoulders, rolling them slightly, turning side-on to the five with his pike double handed, levelled towards the townie. While he looks exhausted, the five look positively sickly. Their skin appears slick, pale, and one of the lackeys has a spatter of poorly-cleaned vomit down the left of his armour. The four look wary, taking in the giant man in the clearing. Goatee, his skin already pale from a life spent indoors, appears drawn but triumphant, gleeful, looking the woodsman up and down. As he grins, Goatee glances down at a small, glossy-varnished box in his left hand as though confirming something there before snapping it shut and slipping it into his pocket.
With the snap, the woodsman shifts balance onto his heel, twisting his torso to the right, looking as though he is about to sprint for the forest’s edge perpendicular to the group of five. Silently, however, a pair of leather-armoured crossbowmen emerge from behind trees near his goal as still another pair of bowmen step out diametrically across from them. The giant man seems to wilt, tip of his pike dropping momentarily as he considers his impending death, before he leaps towards Goatee and his group, a hoarse scream of defiance and rage bellowing from his snarling mouth.
Goatee’s face goes through a sequence of expressions over the next second. At first, he seems to be forming some taunt when the big man screams; his eyes dart to the footmen between him and the wildling, apprehension in his expression until he sees them raising weapons, squaring to face the charge. Then, the look of glee returns as he sees the crossbowmen aiming on the woodsman, his white teeth feral in the manner of one unaccustomed to combat knowing he is going to be on the winning side. And then, finally…
…finally shock and confusion as one of the crossbowmen on Goatee’s left seems to detonate. There is an afterglow from a tiny bead of purple light the size of a firefly impacting the crossbowman’s crotch, a flat crack like muted thunder, and the man’s nether regions become a mist of blood and flying gobbets of gore. The crossbowman emits a brief, groaning shriek at a high register before his crossbow, then his corpse, drop to the red-puddled grass at his feet.
Off to Goatee’s right, the crossbowmen swing their weapons towards the carnage of the fallen archer, pulling their attention away from a tall figure in chainmail and a dark-skinned…child?... barrelling out of the forest eaves towards them. The armoured figure swings a decorated warhammer sickeningly into the face of one surprised archer, a wetter sound of impact than could possibly signal the man’s survival, while the child says one word in a surprisingly deep, resonant voice. Both the voice and the word are jarring, but as the – the halfling man, NOT a child – says “SHIT”, the partner of the crossbowman now missing a jaw and falling backwards gains a look of shock and…the kind of concentration one gets in the latrine.
Goatee’s four protectors flinch, pulling their attentions back to the hurtling form of the big man. He has covered the distance worryingly quickly, and the warrior with the battleaxe moves his weapon far too slowly to deflect the point of the wild man’s pike. Goatee sees the back of the man’s leathers tent towards him, hearing the man’s gurgle as he spits blood. His three remaining colleagues raise weapons, swing, but the pikeman’s momentum twists as he absorbs the shock of impact from the snuffing of Battleaxe and he executes a half-turn, propelling the dying man into two of his allies, nearly tripping one and throwing off the other’s swing. The remaining swordsman slices forward in a practiced arc, but the big man is using the reach of his weapon to stay safely out of danger from his ambusher’s shortsword.
Goatee looks panicked, already pulling his fancy cloak around him, as he spots a second purple bead shooting from the far edge of the forest, where another figure has emerged into the clearing. This one looks as much ghost as she does woman. Flawless, nearly paper-white skin, long silvery-white hair framing a face more beautiful than Goatee has seen outside of an art gallery. She has flicked her right hand to point regally towards the comrade of the dead castrato, to issue the mote of purple that has covered the distance between them in a literal flash. Another flat ‘crack’ and the remaining crossbowman – or at least the last one neither dead nor voiding his bowels noisily into his trousers – pirouettes as though shoved by an ogre. The armour on his shoulder has exploded open, the side of his face sprayed with blood and torn with fragments of bone ejected from his pulverised joint.
As the goateed townsman mutters a curse, he pulls the red hood of his cloak up, vanishing from view. The air around where he stood seems to rush in to fill the sudden void, then is gusted back outwards with sulphurous stink. The faces of the three remaining bodyguards contort with disgust as they try to fend off the bellowing wild man’s attack, although the large man is moving with a grace surprising for his stature. They are trying to press their weight of numbers while avoiding the flashing point of his long weapon which has already left its mark on one of their arms and another’s face. In doing so, they are crowding together, hampering one anothers’ assault.
Off to the big man’s left, the halfling man is watching the squatting, shitting crossbowman while distractedly untying a rope from around his waist. The tiny man seems about to say something to his chainmailed compatriot when the rope is jerked from his hand. His comrade is sprinting towards where the three ambushers are desperately trying to approach the big man. These two had apparently been tied together, and the armoured figure is trailing the rope, hammer head already swinging, gaining momentum while bearing down on the men who were looking so assured of an easy kill seconds before. The halfling gives a shrugging smile to his friend’s back, before quickly retrieving the crapping man’s crossbow which had dropped to the ground as his bowels voided. The halfling smiles brightly as the man looks up –actually looks at eye level to the man’s squatting pose – with a haunted look. “Probably best to just let it happen, hey?” The halfling flinches as the smell of excrement hits him. “What HAVE you been eating? Phew!”
The melee combatant with the handaxe looks over his shoulder, distracted by the disappearance of the fancy man behind him, as a warhammer hits his rightmost colleague in the side of the chest. Handaxe’s attention lapse is punished as the pike’s point bursts through his throat.
Meanwhile, the beautiful ghost has walked halfway to the man on the ground. He is groaning, trying to level his crossbow at her with one working arm, one ruined shoulder. As his face twists with pain and effort, she mutters something in a low tone, flicking double fingers towards his face. She looks on in apparent mild interest as another purple bead impacts and one of his eye sockets explodes, flesh and shards of skull raining into his lap as he expires. Across the clearing, the halfling looks round, crossbow still aimed at his crouching prisoner. From his angle, the body in front of the woman looks restful, as though sleeping. As the pale woman looks his way, the halfling’s face creases into a practiced smile, although his eyes look worried. She holds his look for a second, face expressionless, before looking back to the melee.
The remaining ambusher – at least the remaining member of the original ambush party – holds his shortsword in guard position as the man stammers “R…Rian, wai…” before the large man’s pike cuts him off, lancing upwards through the roof of his mouth and into his brain, snuffing the man like a candle. In the same instant, the Warhammer swings back, a flat arc colliding with the side of the final combatant’s skull. As the man crumples, the armoured blonde-haired figure smoothly shifts stance, grunting slightly with effort to crush the chest of the man’s dying colleague. The motion looks practiced, drilled: an efficient cessation to the casualty’s ragged breathing.
For a moment, the clearing returns to silence, until the pale woman speaks, her voice dripping ice. “What the FUCK is going on here?” Her glare catches the two remaining, blood-spattered melee survivors, takes in the corpses in the clearing, glides across the halfling and his captive, then returns to fix on the man with the pike.
The halfling clears his throat, hails his companion “Hey, Thae! Thae?” As the blonde looks round quizzically, the halfling points to the trailing rope. “How would you like to tie up our friend here? I think he has finished with his…business”.
As the blonde looks down to the knotted rope and begins untying, a pointed ear emerges from under shifting hair. The half-elf nods shortly to the bearded man, then turns and walks towards the halfling, looping up the rope while staring down the terrified prisoner sitting in his own mess. The armoured figure wears a white tabard decorated with gold edging and the sigil of an ugly, snake-haired woman’s face. Taking in the spatters of blood on the tabard, the half-elf’s head shakes ruefully. The cowering man notices, cringes further as the warrior draws near.
The bearded man slumps again, allowing himself to breathe heavily. After a few deep inhales, he looks in turn at the three people who shifted the impossible battle into his favour. His lips press tightly together, his moustache and beard masking the expression beneath. Haltingly, his voice rumbling, he simply says “Thank you.”
