An Eye for an Eye

y: Miral Posted on: May 28, 2007

Dust shifted lazily over the plain. Little tufts of wind offering the only comfort in the summer heat. The sun shone bright, refracting into dazzling arrays of color off of the two combatant's armour. Fullplate, emblazoned with the codec of his lineage, wore the Troll. A paladin of great pride, head held high and the bleached plume of an exotic foul taking its place along the ridge of his helm. Twin axes gleam, each showing the wear and tear of myriad battles. His opponent a lithe Mhun, its armour only adorned by dents and cracks from prior battles. Slender rapiers, cradled in small, dexterous fingers, the smaller combatant seemed at ease, relaxed yet ready.

One large axe was pointed at the smaller combatant, the giant of a Troll barely containing laughter a he waited for the small fighter to reveal himself. And alas, when the smaller warrior pulled free "his" face was revealed. Long crimson locks, sun-bleached to a deep auburn, tumbled free. The Mhun was indeed a woman, a deep scar over a permanently closed eye. Her voice a mixture of bitterness and yet the softness that only a woman can truly express. "You do not likely remember me, but I have spent my entire life preparing for this moment."

Taken aback, he snarled his words. "The runt that escaped. Heathens, no matter their age, shall be punished!" The zealot remembered the novice Infernal quite well, 23 years ago he had encountered her during a raid, killed her family and cost her her eye in battle before she had managed to flee. And now again, he was faced off with his own dark past, his haunting tragedy.

With a swift swipe, the Troll spun full about, both axes whistling through the air. One aimed at the Mhun's legs the other for her chest. But the Mhun had studied, learned, watched from afar and through travel in Blackwind form. She knew this technique all too well. Her form twisted, spinning as her form drifted between the near fatal blows. Legs suddenly snapped outward, the outsides of her feet catching the handles just above the Troll's hands. Leverage and momentum won over sheer strength this time, the axes flailing wide and the lower being embedded in the ground. At the end of the swift action she landed and snapped her blades out swiftly, twin pricks into his left leg with the smaller weapons.

Venom raced through the man's body, speeding with his enhanced metabolism. Soon both of his legs withered to mere husks, and before he could react, again, with daemonic speed, those blades again descended, maiming his left leg. Again the steady beat of his heart shot venom deep into his system, one of his arms withering away, his grip barely maintained on his weapon. Swift thought brought him to apply a mystical concoction to his legs, renewing their livelihood to at least some usefulness before again and again he would continue applying these strange salves.

As the woman snapped her hand forward, a wreathed miasma of dark energy he dodged back. Off balance, the smaller opponent had no chance to to recover before his leg shot out and took her own with them. The impact of hitting the ground hardly slowed down the nimble fighter. Rolling back and up to her feet, she deftly dodged out of the way as yet again those deadly axes once more. Her form bent in ways that her armour would normally restrict.

Standing upright the woman brushed her fingers over her upper left arm, strands of ethereal light sprang forth, shooting towards the Troll and forming solid webs among his limbs and torso. Taking full advantage of this she swept his legs out from under him, only to repeat the webbing just as he had writhed free. Prone and at her mercy she viciously jabbed at the weak spots of the Troll's armour.

Lucid recollection of that night seared her mind, clouded her thoughts. Tears stinging her eyes as she repeatedly decimated the Troll with swift double pricks of her rapier points, still spreading those fateful venoms through the larger opponents blood. Withering and crippling his limbs, eventually leaving them nearly beyond repair.

An animalistic ferocity rose in her, her whole form bursting in what may have appeared to the unwitting onlooker as black flame, but was in truth a true showing of the darkness and rage that she had harbored for all those years. Decades of sorrow and hate escaped her as she howled in triumph. Her hands and forearms once more seeped with raw necromantic energy, eyes darkened like an eclipsed plague upon Sapience.

Terror, raw and abject, flashed across his face. His blood ran cold as he knew his fate was sealed. Still, he writhed, screaming and begging for mercy that he knew he deserved not. Her hands descended with skilled, calculated premeditation. Eyes holding no remorse, no feeling, and perhaps, not even a soul. And then pain like white flame racing through his body was felt, his back arching and blood spouting from his mouth and now gaping chest.

His chest ripped open, her hands twisting, crushing, slowly snuffing the life from various organs. And in that fateful moment, her right hand moved to his sternum, foot to his groin. Using the leverage from this position she jerked her arm back, the piercing cry that rose fell from her lips echoing fully across the entire Plane, not that of Vengeance, but Glory to the Endbringer to whom the successful Death was dedicated to. This was a personal matter to be sure, but such was her faith that even as the spike of bone was jarred through the barely living man's remains that she forgot all but her place in His honour.

At last the man was slain, his soul rising from the corpse in its usual, near lethargic way. There was naught left to say to this woman. His terror and betrayal of his codes his haunting carried even to stain his very soul. And so a soul he would remain, wandering and lost for eternity, seeking the retribution that had already been delivered.

And thus the tale ends. Vengeance repaid in full, and a young warrior now freed from her past to continue her life in His service fully. No regret, no fear, only continuing her rightful path.