A Mercenary's Tale

By: Shirszae Posted on: July 31, 2016

~I~

Bent like an old hag, the swordsman leant on her long, scabbarded sword like a staff as she limped her way deeper into the slopping, cavernous hallway. Strands of white hair, sticky with half-dried blood clung to her pale, scarred features, and the heavy armour of black plate encasing her limbs seemed like to bring her crashing down at any moment.

On her hand she clutched a silvered medallion like a talisman, her grip tightening every time she ran into one of the undead minions of the Lady of Bolgukova, though none spared her so much as a glance, intent as they were on the butchered corpses of allies as well as foes.

She had spent the last few months holed up in the bizarre Bolgukova Fortress, fighting in a rebellious war that had scant to do with her. Fighting on behalf of the undead against the living, all for the nebulous hope of a reward. And part of her had grown almost used to it. Almost used to the Underworld and its dim and desolate beauty. But knowledge of the gateway's imminent failure threw everything askew, did away with any sense of familiarity until there was only a burgeoning terror at the thought of being trapped in such a wasteland.

And yet she limped on, away from the gateway that would take her to the scarred plains of the Sangre. Away from the Prime Material Plane.

Now and then her heart fluttered as she heard the hurried footsteps of the few who had somehow managed to survive the last battle as they raced back towards the gateway, but she had kept to the shadows nonetheless, unwilling to face their questioning eyes or their pleas to abandon this mad enterprise.

Eventually the pulsing lights of the gateway faded entirely behind her, as did the last echoes of breathless footsteps. Her own tentative ones had long since grown muted, her legs growing feebler until at last she could barely stand. She slid down, leaving a slick, dark trail on the already damp walls. Her blood. A deep cut slashed her side, a testament to the skill of the Blademaster who had found the gap between the plates of her armour and deftly thrust his blade within. Any other time she would have willed such a wound closed and clotted, but presently she could scarcely concentrate on remaining conscious.

If she did not make it back out quickly she was going to bleed to death.

The very idea made the room swim about her, and she felt bile rising in the back of her throat. For a moment she thought that she would drown, but she managed to get a hold of herself at the last, daubing her fingers in her own blood and sketching the Uruz rune on the ground, her consciousness slipping even as she did, bleeding out much like her lifeblood.

~II~

She dreamt of the last battle.

It had been a frightening slaughter. The surviving armies fighting on behalf of Lord Kenmast, Lord Zsarachnor, and the Ur'Vampire Twins Tizane and Zigana had broken past all barricades, defensive towers and finally the very walls, pouring forth into the fortress proper in maddened, irresistible waves. Most of her own forces had drowned under the combined might of a thousand snipping squads backed by Druids and Sylvans and their fearsome bolts of thunder. Those who had somehow endured the initial onslaught had been nonetheless gutted like pigs as Serpents and Knights swept the area for survivors .

In the midst of such chaos, only a scattered few had had the presence of mind to hide in the network of secret chambers thorough the vast complex. Unwilling to let herself be followed, she had sealed her chosen way with as many Gular runes as she had dared sketch, ignoring the surprised, dismal cries of those who came upon their newly-made tombs. She would not die here, she had resolutely told herself as she at last crouched down on a hidden nook, forcing herself to endure the myriad death cries that echoed both close and in the distance, and then the ensuing fight. For with the fragile bond of their shared hatred against the Hashani and their allies consumed, the invading armies had turned briskly on each other, and the fortress had in the end become the graveyard of three different factions.

The unknown Blademaster had been the first living thing she had noticed upon emerging on the sea of corpses. He had long, sandy hair and a lean body with tanned skin, upon which he wore the livery of no particular city-state, his clothes all in faded and undistinguished gray, nor did he keep a medallion visible upon his person. He had been crouched over one of the many bloodied corpses in the halls, no doubt divesting it of what he could, but his head snapped up immediately upon her first steps, a hand falling on his scabbard as he balanced himself on the balls of his feet.

Without a word he leapt, his blade an abrupt flash of silver aimed at her neck- But the first swing was effortlessly parried by her own raised sword, ready in her hands before she could consciously register having drawn it. Just as swiftly the man bounded away, the strange lizard-like helmet upon his head shading his eyes as he sheathed his blade with a swift motion, studying her from a distance.

"Clearly you do not belong to us," she called, her hand briefly touching the medallion upon her breast to show what she meant, "For whom fights you then?"

"I fight for life," he responded evenly, his body still. For the briefest of moments there was a halo of flickering flames about him, but before she could say anything more he had leapt at her again, only belatedly realizing he meant to make a lethal cut at her scarcely protected leg. She swore, throwing herself aside, avoiding the slash but not the hard, unexpected fist at her throat that made her legs wobble as she tried to breathe.

"Hardly seems like it," she mumbled through gritted teeth, thrown back by the utter force of the blow, hands tightening about the hilt of her two-handed sword, "You seem more like an opportunistic knave. I cannot allow you to kill what few soldiers remain to the Lady of Bolgukova."

"Don't you think it unnatural?" The man interrupted, either ignoring or perhaps not having heard her retort in the first place, "The living fighting for the undead? We don't need such trash on the Prime Material Plane."

"Right. So you butcher the living because you object to the undead," she shot back dryly. His legs tensed, and she realized he was about to leap at her once more, but this time she was ready.

Holding her bastard sword low against her body, she lunged first, reaching him and swinging in an upward arc with a scream that had more of frustration than of rage, rising entirely unbidden from her chest. Perhaps sensing this or perhaps by chance, the runes that marked her sword as a runeblade flared into life, accompanying her strike with a rush of power and the too-loud clap of thunder.

Agile as the man was, there was no way to outrun the superior reach of the bastard sword this close up. She saw the realization hit him moments before the blade cut a deep gash into his chest, and the powerful magic sent him sprawling.

"Give me your sword and I will allow you to leave this place," she pressed as she crouched, her fingers framing the runes of Wunjo and Nairat easily, "otherwise I promise that you will die here, for opposing the lady, if not for killing who knows how many of our wounded."

"You are sure devoted to that 'Lady' of yours." There was defiance in the Blademaster's voice, and a wry smile on his lips, despite the red ruin that was his chest, the frayed bits of gray fabric that still clung to him revealing the welling of blood beneath.

"I pledged myself," she shrugged, releasing the runes. At once their power swirled and enveloped him, lines of red and yellow that permeated his body and locked him in place.

"I've met people like you before, too," she said as she pushed herself to her feet, dragging her sword alone with one hand as she made her way to him, "People who for one reason or another hate the undead, who think they are unnatural or that they should not exist, or whatever else." She shrugged to show how utterly unimportant such things were to her, "But by and large, most forget the undead and the living are bound together by the soulbleed, and you might just be the first hypocrite who thinks killing people helps in any manner whatsoever."

She stopped mere inches away from him, regarding him one last time. His eyes were still shadowed under the strange lizard-like helmet and for a moment she felt the incongruous urge to remove it, to look wholly into his face and retain it in her memory. "Alas, you were not stupid enough to believe me, but neither were you smart enough to run," she smirked, and the urge passed as she raised her sword high above, swinging in a wide circle, taking impulse before gripping the hilt with her other hand and bringing the blade to bear down down onto his skull.

Blood and bone and brains exploded into her vision, easily crushed beneath-

But her confidence had cursed her. At the very last moment, his hand rose by an extraordinary force of will, the blade scrapping away from its scabbard one last time to slip past plate and leather and cloth and well into her ribs.

...

Sometime later, when consciousness returned and she regained enough of her senses to lift her head, she found herself eye to eye to the very Ur'Vampire she had been struggling to find. The Lady Prioska.

~III~

Pale and cold, the Ur'Vampire stood just ahead of the veil of shadow at the very end of the hall, the faint intimation of swirling lights at times illuminating her features and hiding her from view. It was, of course, not the first time the swordsman had seen her pale, perfect form, but thorough the war the undead had remained remote, her words and will conveyed for the most part through her minions. She came and went as she pleased through the dismal fortress that was her dominion, carving a bloody path of destruction on the rare occasions when their enemies chanced upn her in battle.

Now, the piercing azure of her eyes simply hovered on her.

Her reverie broken, the swordsman took a deep breath, was relieved to find the rune had at least healed her to the point she could do so without hurting. But she still felt light-headed, and the bleeding had not entirely stopped. "My Lady," she muttered with what tried to be a formal curtsey, but ended up being a grimace-inducing, awkward bob of her head. Prioska did not react at all to it. Never had, really. But for a moment those azure eyes left her form and focused on the slick pool of blood beneath her form.

When those eyes found her own again, she could not help but shiver.

"My Lady," she repeated louder, licking her lips, feeling herself suddenly parched, "As was promised... We have given you victory over all other rival factions. And thought I do not doubt you will hold your bargain with Hashan, I... I would ask for a boom of my own."

"A boon?" Despite the distance, the cold, detached voice reached her ears with impossible clarity, each word laden with a vague mirth. As she spoke, so did the Ur'Vampire approach, causing a twinge of alarm in the battered swordsman, though the icy stare kept her pinned. "Your selfishness nearly costed us victory," the undead said, but there was no rancour in the voice, only the same cold, distant amusement. She crouched at length next to the swordsman, one hand absently sketching the same runes the warrior had used before, though beneath the Ur'Vampire's fingers they were inert. Lifeless. She was no Runewarden.

"I agreed to fight for you, Lady Prioska. I never agreed to die for you," the swordsman forced herself to say, hoping her voice sounded as steely as she willed it.

"And we agreed to reward the city-state of Hashan if it assured our position as King Slith's advisers. The lot of you mercenaries was never once acknowledged," There was now blatant maliciousness in Prioska's tone, and a smile to match it on her impossibly red and luscious lips.

The swordsman wanted to argue, but all that came from her own lips was a fit of bloodied coughing. She cursed openly, even as she struggled to regain her breath, staring at the Ur'Vampire with a look that might have bought her a swift death had she not been already on the very edge of those Halls. Had hot tears of frustration not threatened to run down her cheeks.

As it was, Prioska's smile simply and unpleasantly deepened. She straightened with a regal motion, the rich layers of her dress utterly devoid of wrinkles.

"There is no need for such demonstrations. We know what is it you seek. And you know what we would have from you. You did... pledge yourself after all, yes? A mortal that would go through such trouble for such a thing is... interesting to us. And we would have such a mortal at our service."

With a flourish of her hand, the Ur'Vampire produced a richly decorated scroll case of ivory and deposited in the swordsman half-numb hands, "A gesture of... good will, I think you mortals call it? An old painting, that. Even Asztrik is rather fond of it. But make no mistake. there is no refusing us. You might not have noticed, but the gateway has just," and here she closed her fist rather casually, "closed. Not that with your injuries it wouldn't have been something of a moot point anyway."