Completed Barbarism

[Henk]

Alistair's words broke Henk from a slumber he hadn't realized he was falling into, the slow, shallow breaths forcing their way into his lungs turning to a sharp, heavy gasp as he called him to rise, eyes shooting open and immediately dilating under the light of the growing fire above his head. Gods... the pain... every inch of his body felt like he'd been slow-roasted over a fire to be eaten pull-a-part.

The rune-mage who'd woken him ushered for him to follow to the front lines before adding "Don't push too much, though." and running off before Henk had time to tell him to go fuck himself for that line. No, Alistair meant well, but Henk had already given so much today, he felt like taking a few steps forward might be pushing it too much.

There wasn't much of a choice though. The tower he leaned against was burning, and none of the others had given up, so neither would he. Ignoring the searing agony, Henk braced himself against the burning tower behind him and hoisted himself up to his feet. It helped to keep his eyes up high, focused on Alistair as he ran toward the foreboding battlefield that lay before them, and not on his charred hands, healed slightly by Edric's crystal before he'd removed it, and the bleeding wound on his shoulder.

Then his view of Alistair was obstructed by orcs, some attacking him, some moving past Krixus to target what they saw as a much easier kill off in the distance in Henk.

"Damn it..." Henk was disoriented. He'd fallen unconscious for a moment and now he wasn't sure what was going on. Alistair hadn't filled him in, but he couldn't see Ralene anywhere, and aside from the spouts of flame that occasionally jetted up into the sky, he didn't have a clear view of Zael either. What was even worse, the Tower behind him was falling apart, and more of them were starting to pour in through the holes created by its collapse. In the blink of an eye, it seemed two orcs were already on him, taking swings at him with crudely fashioned blades.

Dodging the sloppy swings wasn't an issue, but Henk was spent. There wasn't a bit of light left for him to give and he had to rely on hand-to-hand combat to hold the orcs back.

Henk was a damn good fistfighter, one of the very best among his peers in that particular style of combat...

But these were Orcs. Ever try punching an Orc?

Henk didn't even bother, he'd need to get more creative than that. They were strong, but not all that smart. Not smart enough to attack in unison, at least. Henk waited until one came at him with a vicious vertical swipe, stepped aside, and took his free arm, using the brute's momentum to flip him over onto his back before bringing his boot down on the greenies face.

The other charged him from the rear, his massive feet smashing bones and flesh lying already dead underneath him. Predictable. Henk could work with predictable. Only taking a momentary glance behind him, the initiate quickly ducked into a somersault, rolling away from the Orc's charge, and letting his boot meet his chest right at he was upon Henk, carrying him over with his leg and dumping him on his head. All the while, the tower crumbled behind them, a cloud of dust, ash, splintered wood, and pebbled rock showering the both of them with a thunderous crash.

Clambering to his feet, Henk took a breath as he turned his head back towards the now completely destroyed structure he'd been inside only minutes earlier. Well, if they'd have kept coming at him in twos he could deal with it, but the dozen or so approaching the gap made it clear that wasn't about to be granted to him.

So when a team of Knights arrived seemingly from thin air to support him, he reminded himself to thank Holstag for saving his life. Maybe he'd been somewhat harsh on the man after all.

 

[Zael Castomir]

Visha couldn't keep it up forever.

The wounds she had already suffered from the archers' arrows, the slow recovery of her life force from Edric's magic, her own flustered panic over Zael's fire immunity (and her involuntary laughing, giggling, response to these confusing emotions), all of it was taking its toll.

Zael, even without the enhancements of his magic, was a ferocious fighter, and his style with the sword was aggressive and relentless. He was constantly gaining ground, pushing Visha back, scoring slashes and punctures against and into flesh whenever her igneous arm or little tricks of pyromancy weren't fast enough to protect her.

One such cut split her entire right cheek open as his sword raked across her face. Twin flaps of skin dangled. She no longer needed to bark out laughter to expose her teeth, her gums, her tongue. The right corner of her lips no longer had a defined end.

But this was the last strike Zael got on Visha. He knew the ogres were coming. He knew he only had limited time. He saw them getting closer and closer (Edric and Ralene having disappeared behind that mass of oncoming bodies) and he heard the tower collapsed behind him as he was fighting. But if he could just kill her he could take off immediately and soar back into Vel Janix.

He almost did. Zael got that slice on her cheek (he had wanted to take her whole head off, but a wound was a wound) and Visha fell to the ground on her back. An ogre was coming. Zael drove his sword down in the attempt to plunge it through Visha's skull.

But the ogre stomped over Visha's body (accidentally stepping on and crushing Visha's entire right arm, the girl laughing maniacally in torturous pain) and with a big, meaty hand pushed Zael back. Zael was thrown off of his feet by the ogre's immense strength, landing hard onto his own back on the ground. Other ogres and goblins and even some orcs went rushing by, all surging for the breach in the wall and the front gates, all seeking to the first ones inside Vel Janix.

Before Zael could stand, the ogre, whose name was Kulruk, took hold of Zael in his massive hands and lifted him right up and held him restrained by his arms. Zael grimaced hard, a strained groan escaping involuntarily from his throat; in Kulruk's grip it felt like his arms were both going to be ripped out of their sockets and crushed like Visha's own.

"Come on then, hume, ha ha! Kulruk hold 'im for ya!"

 

[Visha Sofka]

Blood burbled in her throat, in her chest, in her lungs. A strange hissing and wheezing sound was inevitably coming from the gaping slash splitting open her cheek with each breath. Her skin was pale, lips an unhealthy shade of blue, and her whole body felt like liquid.

And still she laughed.

Visha tried to stand. Her right arm, what was left of it, was nothing more than a ragged sock of flesh and pulverized muscle and bone, dangling limp and useless. USELESS! Just like the College! Her igneous arm was the only thing across the whole of her body which didn't feel that way! Imamu! Great Maho! She needed more! MORE!

"And...a sacrifice...will do! Ha, ha! HA, HA!"

Visha finally did get to her feet. Woozy. Unsteady. Adrenaline and madness the only two things keeping her in motion.

"A sacrifice...will get...their attention! Ha, ha! HA, HA, HA!"

She trudged across the dirt, dripping blood from her copious wounds with each step. Her vision was darkening slowly, images fading in and out.

"Hold him nice and still, Kulruk."

Visha stood before the restrained Zael. With the last vestiges of trembling strength did she lift up her igneous arm. Into a ghostly flame did that very rock become.

"Give me your fire...ALL OF IT!"

And Visha plunged that spectral arm deep into Zael's chest, delighted by his unearthly screams of agony.

* * * * *​

Romguul stood in the center of the entire army of ogres, mounted atop his own Great Horned Crusher, both himself and the massive beast he rode clad in armor heavy enough to sink a light boat.

Beside him, his weapon of mass destruction: the tamed Steppe Giant, the gargantuan creature wielding the reinforced trunk of a whole tree as its own weapon.

And he saw the signals from the cavalry: red smoke from eastern and western walls. They were breached.

Good. Goooood. He was just getting a little hungry himself.

Edric Ralene

 

[Edric]

Ralene became a force of nature, and Edric was right behind her.

Already he could feel the strain on his muscles, the flickers of pain and hurt still sailing through him from the beating he had taken. All of it was ignored, cast asunder and forgotten about as the two Dreadlords forged their way through the horde of Ogre's.

Everything around him became a blur.

Ogre's and goblins became faceless voids. His fingers dug in a white knuckle grip into the hilt of the broken sword in his hand. In some distant world he could hear roaring screams, echoing shouts of violence, the shattering of bone and the crunch of flesh.

Nothing seemed to reach him as he and Ralene forged a path through the enemy.

He lashed out, no regard for the training his Proctor's had given him. No semblance of calm or strategy. Edric ripped through Ogre after Ogre. Cutting, impaling, ripping. Whatever was in front of him died, whatever stepped forward became a corpse.

A swath of dead was forged, and yet it wasn't enough.

There seemed not an end to their foe.

Ogre's pulled themselves forward, goblins raked desperately across the ground, and beyond them something swayed. A great hulking figure that towered over the mass of flesh which was the Ogre Horde. The Giant pulled itself up high, eyes drawn towards the Initiate's carving their way forward.

 

[Alistair Krixus]

First was the boom of the thunder and then the crack of lightning as Alistair was lost in the storm...Wait, that wasn't right. That was the wrong order. The thunder...those were just the beat of warg paws . The crack of lightning might be the crack of his left forearm. That's right. He remembered where he was at. The charge, the suicidal dive.

His body was thrown to the ground, and a wolf and rider crashed to the ground next to him. It wasn't enough, others were moving past him. Without even thinking he shoved the spear into the ground to try and get to his feet. He would have managed it, if not for another wolf skewering itself upon the weapon, sending the rider and flying and Alistair tumbling to the ground.

That was when the real thunder came, Alistair had forgotten about them because of the battle's chaos, but they were still runes out there lying in wait. The most recent collision had caused a chain reaction of riders and beasts to crash and stumble. This cavalry set off many of the remaining runes left. Before he could recenter himself, Alistair was surrounded by tens and tens of explosions with beast and orc bodies alike being thrown around the battlefield.

It was a miracle Alistair did not stumble into any runes, as the ringing in his ears and the confusion that constantly challenged his logic was indicating he likely had a minor concussion and, likely, many other injuries.

Yes, the cavalry was being scattered. The army could hopefully handle the stragglers. Alistair wildly looked around and began to stumble back towards the lines. At least, he thought those were his lines. Humans were good right?

Ralene Edric Henk Zael Castomir

 

[Samantha Black]

Felt like fighting a rip tide trying to come in to shore. For every instant the pressure broke, there was but only a few breaths of relief before the next wave. Ralene continued to carve her way through the surge, blades slicing through flesh and bone, pausing to wipe the slick of mess from her eyes or to cleave a determined enemy from her figure.

She could feel Edric's own rush at her right, like a shared breath of raw violence for the machine of war they served. He punched through the wall of enemies, pulling life and limb from them and she came in to finish clearing the horde with flashes of scarlet or pulses of black. She nearly found herself flattened beneath the falling mass of an ogre as Edric's power tore the lifeforce from its mortal coil. Rolling quickly to the left to avoid the smashing weight of its flailing limb and landed in a rare open space caught between waves.

Her gaze shifted up the hill and her eyes set upon the absolutely gargantuan shadow rising at the precipice.

"Oh fuck-" said the Initiate with a shallow breath and then felt the weight of an ogre's club slam into her from the side. Ralene went flying back in the direction of Edric, her body impacting countless goblins along the way and toppling them like bowling pins.

When she finally came to a stop she found herself weighed down by a pile of bodies - some squirming to get at her, others limp and listless. Her lungs screamed for air and her mind struggled to catch up with her body.

 

[Henk]

With the support of the reinforcements who'd arrived in just the nick of time, securing the large breach in the wall caused by the collapse of the watchtower wasn't too difficult a task. Henk wasn't able to help as much as he'd like, but the fresh meat backing him up weren't dog-tired, and a sharp-eyed soldier atop a horse could outmatch a march-exhausted, anger-blinded Orc nine times out of ten.

That was one front of the battle squared away, but it was one front of many. Henk had long since lost sight of any of his contemporaries; that little nap hadn't helped, and while his front was secure the same couldn't be said of the rest of the outpost. Carnage and violence surrounded the small fortress they saught to defend, and soon even the warriors who had come to assist him moved to find and secure his classmates.

It certainly seemed that his work wasn't done yet.

Honestly, Henk wasn't sure how much good he could do, but... reaching down to grasp a discarded blade from a fallen Guard with his one working hand. If he could link back up with Alistair, they could track down Zael, Ralene and Edric. Assuming they could avoid becoming mincemeat along the way. Henk set off in the direction Alistair had gone after waking him up, sword at the ready, cutting down small-fry stragglers as he went.

 

[Zael Castomir]

"Mine," Visha said as she continued to siphon magic from Zael, "All mine. THEN...I'm going to say hello to my brother! I'll take all your hair too and make a wig out of it and gift it to him SO HE CAN BE BEAUTIFUL!"

Zael's head was arched back. His teeth clenched. He felt like his entire world was being collapsed down into a small pinprick point in the center of his chest and sucked out through a tube, a feeling as alien as it was agonizing.

He looked down to Visha. The crazed look on her face. Her face. So close. Close.

In pure desperation he opened his mouth wide and lunged forward as much as Kulruk's grip would allow and he sank his teeth into Visha's nose. She flinched, shocked and stunned and confused all at once. He felt his teeth break through flesh and click hard against the bone beneath. Visha started to scream maniacally. She swatted at him with her free hand but couldn't get him to let go. Horrid cracking reverberated within Zael's mouth, bits of bone and maybe even chunks of his own enamel swirling in a mixture of blood and saliva.

And he bit Visha's nose off. Spat it out to the side.

She fell back onto her rear end, her spectral arm slipping out of his chest and becoming igneous rock once more, and she clutched at the gaping hole in her face, shouting obscenities. Kulruk made to rip Zael's arms from their sockets but he couldn't act fast enough. With his magic back under his control, twin bursts of flame and fury erupted from Zael's arms, blowing Kulruk's hands apart and leaving him with bloody, gushing stumps. Kulruk was bellowing, Visha was screaming, and Zael dropped to the ground.

Visha stood. "YOU! I can't take out another loan from Imamu this early! I'll—!"

Zael grabbed his sword from the ground and with a burst of blinding speed from his Fireblood sliced and cleaved Visha cleanly in half at the waist. Her torso fell to the dirt and he kicked her legs out of his way and plunged his sword deep into her chest.

 

[Visha Sofka]

Visha's eyes bulged as the steel of Zael's sword delved into her ribcage. Cut into her heart.

She could see the endless sky above. Where all the gods dwelled. Where Great Maho himself dwelled!

With her fading physical strength, she said, "Great Maho...can you see me?"

Then she laughed. Laughed and laughed and her bulging eyes shifted from a look of abject pain to that of fanatical zeal and joy.

"YOU WILL!"

Her eyes became brilliant embers in her final act of sorcery. Heat was sucked in from a great diameter around her, a rush of wind accompanying the chaotically fluctuating temperature. Zael, like Kulruk, was not fast enough to react once he realized what was happening. And like a dying star, she exploded.

A gigantic fireball engulfed everything, friend and foe, within that same great diameter around Visha. All of Vel Janix felt the concussive shockwave, and, worse, the hole in the wall created by the fallen Tower, which Alistair and Henk were trying so hard to defend, was made even larger. The wooden trunks of the wall were blown inward, breaking, shattering, uprooted from the very earth and tossed at buildings and Guardsmen and Ogres alike. A horrific catastrophe.

What was once a scar, that hole in Vel Janix's wall, was now an amputation. The town stood practically wide open.

And only a deep, wide crater was left where Visha and Zael once fought.

Edric Alistair Krixus Ralene Henk

 

[Alistair Krixus]

It was really hard to think when there was a constant ringing in your ear and the world was spinning. In fact, this reminded him a lot of how the Proctors used to train him to look through runes when he was young. He did not like it then and he did not like it now.

Oh, the world was upside down. Nope, he had just fallen over again. A groan escaped Alistair's lips as he scrambled back up to his feet. Overhead, he thought he heard an arrow whiz by...or maybe that was the ringing. Either way, it did not hit him. He was not in any position to stop it if it chose to impale him. His only option was to keep moving.

He wasn't sure when it happened, but at some point, he found himself back surrounded by humans. He bumped into a few that lightly shoved him away. The pain was ever-present in his body and it was only exaggerated thanks to the shove.

There must have been some god out there watching him, but he bumped into another and whipped around to see Henk. Well, it was Henk with three heads. No, wait. He focused for a moment and his vision steadied for a second. That was a little better.

"Henk...Are you ok?"

He did not say anything about himself, mainly because he had no idea. He probably looked like he had just been trampled by cavalry, which he had.

"We...need...find Zael."

Every pause came with a deep labored breath from Alistair. The ringing was just beginning to die down, but as the noise quieted in his ears, the pain in his body overcame his numbness.

Zael Castomir Henk

 

[Edric]

Ralene went flying, Edric's head jerking to the right as he heard the thud of the Giant's massive club against his friends armor. Her entire body crumpling, and then being thrown dozens of paces back into the mass of ravening Ogres and Greenskins.

The broken sword in his hand flipped, turning in his grasp as his entire body shifted to go back for his friend.

His motion interrupted when the slam of a massive palm struck down where he had just been standing. The earth shaking and his footing nearly slipping free as the Giant struck the earth. The Initate's head turned, catching the giant's eyes.

A roar escaped the creature's throat, it's bile like breath and spittle spewing out in guttural hatred.

Edric spun on his heel, his magic suddenly wrenching forward as he grasped at the inferno of the Giant's life. Pulling and dragging at the monsters vitality as he launched himself forward. Darting in quick successive jumps up and onto the Giant's arm.

He ran as fast as he could, the monsters face shifting in anger and confusion. It's second hand came up, swatting at the Dreadlord desperately even as it reared up, slamming at it's own body even as it felt itself weakened.

Edric took and took, ripping at the Giant's life. His own magic quickening, sending him up the creatures side.

His broken sword cut at the monsters skin, leaving shallow gashes in flesh thick as a buildings wall.

The Giant let out a curse within it's Jotunn tongue, calling for aid or cursing the fly which sliced at it's flesh. A hand came up to strike at Edric, reaching, when suddenly a shockwave burst out from the wall. An explosion tore into the city, ripping block and mortar into pieces, incinerating people, and sending goblin and ogre alike flying.

Rippling air struck the Giant, it's face flickering in panic as it's weakened legs finally gave out. With a roar and clutching at air, the giant reached desperately to stop itself from falling, but it was already too late. Another shockwave rippled through the ground, spewing a mass of dirt, debris, and dust into the air as the giant crashed into the earth.

For a second, a brief second, silence loomed.

Then a voice echoed out.

"CHARGE! TAKE DEM WALLS!"
​

The shout demanded as the Ogre's came crashing through the cloud of dust.

 

[Zael Castomir]

When Zael awoke, it was already all over.

He opened his eyes and awareness came to him in scattered form. The sun's position in the sky hadn't changed overly much from where he vaguely remembered it. He was in a tree, caught in a tangle of branches. The acrid smell of smoke was drifting into his nose, and raucous cheers and guttural cries of victory could be heard not too far off. He was bleeding from a gash in his forehead where he had hit his head after landing in the tree. His armor, his sword, both were gone, the former having been blown off and the latter having been dropped.

In the distance, Zael could see that Vel Janix was burning. It belonged to the ogres now, and they were pillaging and destroying everything.

"Hey."

Zael looked down. To his surprise, Joan of all people was down there. She held a spear in one hand, and the severed head of an ogre in the other. Her hair was blood-matted, her face grim. She turned her chin toward her home of Vel Janix and gave a slight, sober nod.

"There's nothing left for anyone there."

"The others," Zael said. "Have you seen any of the others?"

Joan shook her head. "If they're still alive, they aren't there."

Zael accepted it as a harsh truth. He took firm hold of the gnarled branches of the tree he found himself in, lowered himself down, then dropped to the ground.

"Let's get the hell out of here."

Joan just nodded. All that rage she had shown in the Town Hall was gone, replaced by only the present grim realism which leveled out her expression into a hard neutrality.

They started walking.

"Joan?"

"Yes?"

"I'm sorry."

She looked like she wanted to say something. Apologize herself, perhaps, for the harsh words she had yelled at him and Edric. Mayhap try to assuage whatever guilt or feelings of inadequacy he felt. But she simply couldn't find the words, and her gaze slid away from him and down and they walked in silence.

And that was as good as it was going to get.