Completed Not All Cells Are Steel and Stone

[Ruslan Gildal]

Not everyone was born for this (even if they had the aptitude), yet from what he had seen earlier Maranae could have fooled him. Her use of the word "made", though, could only be interpreted one way for a man like Ruslan.

"The peculiar distribution of blessings and talents, curses and woes, is done in a manner that our gods see fit. It is not ours to lament our lot or to begrudge another theirs. We take what has been given, the good and the bad, the boons and the burdens, and must make for ourselves a life within these bounds the gods have established."

The poor woman didn't even know where she was from, but maybe she had come to find a god to inhabit her hearth somewhere along the way. And if not, perhaps there was a god or goddess with a keen interest in Mara yet, waiting for her to discover him or her. For Ruslan, he rejoiced in the surety afforded to him in his lot in life, being born in Gild and having Regel, the Judge of All, as the god worshipped by his homeland.

"So you don't like fighting. But maybe, you have this gift so that you can get to where you need to go," he said, trying to be encouraging. "Then, perhaps, you won't need that sword or those claws."

Maranae

 

[Maranae]

"What are gods?"

An innocent question from a (mostly) innocent mind. Most of what he had said had flown cleanly over her head, and the light of confusion in her eyes illuminated her lack of understanding clearly, even if she was mostly incapable of putting that inability to understand to words.

"Fighting is not gift. Is only thing she was made to do." She cast a look into the gathering gloom, and shuddered as though recalling some particularly unpleasant memory. "Want to...," she began, her face scrunching as she searched for words. "Want to make. Not un-make."

She gave an expressive look to Ruslan that conveyed a myriad of emotions and desires. Words were not her suit, but she could convey much, much more by body language. And what she conveyed now was a soul-deep longing that had been stolen from her.

As so much else had.

 

[Ruslan Gildal]

What are gods?

Regel in the Fields of Emir, the woman's deprivation was worse than he thought.

A bit of hyperbole there, yet the underlying sentiment was true. Maranae had qualities of a beast—those claws, those teeth—but Ruslan had until this point given her the benefit of the doubt with her shaky command of the Common tongue. Now? Seemed that when she said "(fighting) is only thing she was made to do" she meant that in such a literal manner his friend Anfisa would've been mightily impressed.

Could such a thing even be? Ruslan didn't know, and even contemplation of the answer was dreadful and abhorrent. Who would meddle so maliciously with the most sacred gift of all: life? It was enough to make Ruslan want to seek out the nearest temple, borrow those hallowed walls to pray to Regel for a boon of strength, and then find and cave in the skulls of such purveyors of villainy and callousness.

For now though, he regarded Maranae with patience. He'd answer her question, but succinctness and simplicity were called for, else she'd never understand.

"The gods and goddesses are immortal beings beyond Arethil. Powerful beings eclipsing anything in this world. Some take interest in the affairs of mortals, for our actions please or displease them. Some gods are good, and others...well, some are not so good."

And as to her second remark, if Maranae had a tongue as capable of letting her will be known as her eyes, then what would she say? Perhaps the winds of Arethil would never carry that answer upon them.

Ruslan offered a smile, trying to help put it at least a little at ease before the coming battle, "What would you make, if circumstances allowed?"

Maranae

 

[Maranae]

More words that were too fast, too complex for her to grasp. The confusion only deepened in her eyes, even as she latched onto words she could understand. "These gods like people. But most people... not good," she said simply and more than a touch sad. She eyed the others, gathered at Mama Bear - who was exhorting them with raised hands and raised voice. She glanced Ruslan and Maranae's way but only scowled before laying into the remaining survivors.

She was getting ready to turn away, weary of the questions and the difficulty words that were demanded of her on a stomach that was still clawing its way out of her body when he asked another question. She stopped, flexing her hands as she worked through the words, working her way through his question.

"She would make pretty things," she said as she looked into the gloom. Just visible through the canopy was the fading sunset, casting what sky could be seen in fiery red and orange. "Things that make me happy. Thinks that make others happy. Not... not pain. Not making things stop forever."

 

[Ruslan Gildal]

There was something undeniably sweet in what Maranae said, in that far-off and dreaming look she cast toward the setting sun. Peaceful. He would have perhaps added something along the lines of "innocent" or "child-like", but such descriptors seemed somehow as ill-fitting as they were fitting: in the case of the first, because he had seen her tear through those raiders with a fury that most veteran fighting men would admire; in the case of the second, because...well, she stood taller than he did, producing a juxtaposition between her demeanor and her physical stature.

Maranae said little, but beneath that flowing crown of red hair was a bundle of mysteries.

"Things that make others happy—that's the mark of a good soul, caring for others."

Soul might be one of those words which Mara might not recognize, that Ruslan would have the tricky task of explaining, but he chanced it anyway.

"Do you like woodworking? Jewelcrafting? Painting or sculpting?" In the case that she was more familiar with the products of those professions rather than the professions themselves, he asked, "What sort of things do you think are pretty?"

Maranae

 

[Maranae]

What sort of things do you think are pretty?

The words sparked something in her head, some fragment of what had come before. Jagged edged pieces of the life that had come before this fog-shrouded world where everything happened too fast and much of it was beyond her comprehension.

...bright, primary colors - rich red, blue the brilliance of a summer sky, yellow like the sun. Green like the verdant garden in the height of summer. Splatters of it here and there, everywhere, smeared on small and pale skinned fingers. Laughter - the laughter of many children, the sense of-

Gone. The fragment was gone before she could snatch it. Etched into her face for those brief moments was such sublime happiness that there was no description for it. And with its loss, tragic sorrow. The emotion flickered across her features and was gone.

But the ghost of the memory remained.

"Doesn't know," she said after a long time, thoughts running with glacial slowness. "She used to, but does not now. Taken from her - me - in making." A flicker of fear, and pain. The memory of fear and pain, far more solid than the shades of the dead. The scars of that trauma were still clearly visible, and impossible to hide if one knew where to look.

Something in her heart seized, and she turned away, heading towards Mama Bear with hooded eyes. The same thing that made her recoil from the touch of others made her turn away from the remnants within. There was no anger here.

Only fear.

She could charge into a shield wall with nary a thought, but the demons inside were too much to bear.

 

[Ruslan Gildal]

"Well..."

Before he could stop himself, Ruslan, as was generally his nature, gave Maranae another pat on the arm; it didn't seem like a very good idea, given how viscerally she reacted last time, actually flinching and recoiling. But the realization came too late, it was done, and he'd just have to go with it and try to keep in mind that he ought to refrain from genial contact in the future.

"...maybe after we reclaim the caravan from those raiders, we could try a little something. Occupy our time between here and our destination."

He didn't have any paints, nor clay, his inkwell was dry, but he did have a knife and there could be found plenty of suitable pieces of wood laying about. But, of course, trying out any sort of craft was all contingent upon victory—or at least some manner of solid solution to their present plight.

Maranae

 

[Maranae]

The contact was again received as poorly, and again she said nothing of it. Loud noises and pain echoed down the corridor of time. She said nothing to Ruslan, her words spent for the moment.

She also did not like the thought of what she would have to do about the raiders, either.

Mama Bear, on the other hand, had little scruples about them or the blood to be shed. "Andon brought delightful news," she said as the red head and Ruslan joined the group. They were reduced in number to nine able-bodied souls with the will and skill to fight. Mama looked at each of them with hard eyes and a no-nonsense gleam in her eye. "Apparently they are accustomed to people getting licked solidly enough to turn tail and flee, else slay everyone involved. They haven't gone far."

"Still outnumber us a fair bit though," Andon replied sourly. He kept looking back through the trees as though searching for someone following them.

"Two miles of forest between us," she said, ignoring him other than to acknowledge his nod of affirmation. "Too late to try to travel there now. But I say we give them a breakfast of cold steel and take my belongs back from them. Could be they have some additional loot we can lift off them. They won't be needing it if we succeed."

She sketched a rough layout of the camp as Andon had described it. It was as rough and tumble-down as one would expect of cutthroats. A handful of crude huts and one watch tower in the trees, and two dozen men. Give or take. Mama said as much, looked to the others for any comment. "Numbers aren't the best. But ol' Mama, she has a trick or two up her sleeve."

The predatory gleam in her eye would have set many a heart to fluttering, and not in any romantic way, either.

 

[Ruslan Gildal]

Mama Bear had the heart of a warrior and no mistake, the sort of woman who can and did make of herself a professional soldier back home.

"We could go in the morning, before first light," Ruslan suggested to Mama and the gathered survivors, "use the darkness and a full night's worth of complacency and reveling in the spoils of victory to catch them perhaps unaware. Cut them down in their own bedrolls and the rest in their confusion as they scramble to arms."

Goffred, at least, seemed to like the idea, pressing his lips together and nodding in agreement. Whether it was this or one of Mama Bear's mysterious tricks, he was set on whatever made this more butchery than battle, if only because he just wanted to have done with it as quickly as possible. He had his mind on his coin, alright.

Ruslan shifted a brief glance Maranae's way. Chances were none of this talk was to her liking, but...war and battle had a way of finding you whether you liked it or not. Poor girl.

Maranae

 

[Maranae]

Mama grinned viciously at Ruslan's suggestion. "A man after my own black heart," she murmured. "Honor's for those as can afford it. Catch them completely unawares and maybe slit every throat without having to dance the dance sounds like a mighty fine plan to me." Ruslan's own private musings might have held some water regarding her past, for certain.

She did cut a villainous figure, framed in the dying light.

"Probably can't get that lucky," Andon replied moodily. "They have sentries. I wouldn't trust them with my life, but all it takes is one half-mad forest thief to make life much more interesting for us."

"I can snipe one or two," another said. Maranae's gold eyes gleamed as she turned to face him. Tall fellow, long hair braided into a thick rope. His face was scarred - and not in a lovely way - and his eyes were harder, even, than Mama's. A brutal bow leaned up against a tree next to him, a great beast of a war bow. No hunter, this; although Mara knew little of archery it did not take much knowledge to know that the draw on that weapon of war would be more than most people could handle.

And looking at the rail-thin fellow, it would be hard to understand how he could.

"Handy skill you have there, Squint," she said to him. "That bow can fire what, two hundred yards?"

"More." He shrugged.

"Beautiful," she breathed. "So we have a spotter, a bowman, and some throat-slitters. I can perhaps fog our friends minds' a bit from afar. If they manage to dispel the glamour, why, I am just as happy to stick some pigs as the rest of you lot."

Her eyes shifted to Maranae. "Might have to have you make an example of one or two of 'em too, girl."

She remained silent, almost pensive. Words spent on previous conversations had hardly had time to recuperate by now.

 

[Ruslan Gildal]

"Don't miss, Squint," Goffred said as the man's particular skill was brought to the forefront.

Mama Bear mentioned a little talent for beguilement, and then her attention swung around unto Maranae. Ruslan turned eyes to her too, as did Goffred and the few others; he felt a touch of disquiet for the woman now that she was the center of attention, knowing what he did of her disposition. Yet she was here, was she not? She had been hired on as a caravan hand with this specific purpose in mind. And, as Ruslan himself said (and soundly believed), she had a gift which had been ordained to be hers either by birth or through the arrangement of circumstance in her life, and it was this gift which the gods, in their wisdom, had allowed for her, such that she might use it to reach her destiny—where perhaps she could, in the proverbial sense, at last lay down her sword. The crux of this, of course, was that she of her own volition used said gift. It was far more the nature of the gods to provide the means by which mortals could achieve greatness, not to directly interfere, for what was given could never shine more brilliantly than what was earned.

Ruslan, this time, managed to curb his tendencies and did not lay a reassuring hand on Maranae's shoulder. "You'll do fine."

"So we stay quiet for as long as we can, then raise hell when quiet's not an option anymore," said Herman, one of the few other surviving caravaneers, a portly fellow who bore a striking resemblance to any random artist's interpretation of a six-foot tall dwarf. "Least I'm good at the second part," he added with a self-aware smirk.

Ruslan nodded firmly. "Morale's a fickle thing. Fear and confusion work hand-in-hand to bedevil it. Many a smaller force have bested larger ones in this way."

Which, as Mama Bear alluded to with Maranae and 'making an example' of one or two of the raiders, might mean that great weight was placed on the pensive redhead's shoulders, pinning not just the possibility of success on her efforts but perhaps the very lives of those around her. Oh, how often what we need is more readily provided by the world than what we want.

Maranae

 

[Maranae]

She seemed to shrink under the combined attention, the weight of the stares and glances from the handful of people gathered here. The caravan master looked at her sad little army with a gleam in her eye, something like nostalgia kicking around the look she gave them.

"Right. Get what rest you can. I have to spend some time preparing some surprises for tomorrow. Do not bother me unless our friends come a-knocking." With that, she vanished into the gloom.

The others looked to one another. There was the unease that comes with any about to head in to a fight, regardless of being veteran or green or wholly unaccustomed to the dance of war.

All except Maranae. Sometimes there was a blessing to being too dim to perceive your own mortality. Or perhaps it was simply because she was so very hard to kill, and pain didn't hold much sway in the long term for her. Weakness still nipped at her limbs, and an unhealthy pallor to her skin (what showed of it), but when she drifted off to one side, sat down with her back to a tree and legs folded beneath her...

She closed her eyes, still her heart, slowed her breathing. Ignored the insistent hunger that clawed at the edges of the calm, the fear that tried to insinuate itself into the shattered remnants of her being. Meditation was a thing gifted to her by a friend - one whose face she could scarcely recall. Another piece of the puzzle that she represented.

Centered on what was left of her, she let the poison of doubt and fear and anger bleed from her and allowed tranquility to replace it. This was the only time when she was ever truly at peace, and now more than ever she needed that comforting hand.

That guiding light, lost in the dark.

 

[Ruslan Gildal]

The moons progressed across their track in the Arethilian night sky as the caravaneer survivors (and some of the raiders, only a scant two miles away) slept. If there was one thing to be said about anticipation, however, it was that it made a horrible mistress to accompany restful sleep. Still, even those short, interrupted bursts of rest were better than nothing.

Perhaps during one of these bursts, or perhaps it was that Mara slept soundly or not truly at all, Ruslan and Goffred approached. They intended to rouse the beastwoman.

Ruslan crouched down before her. "Rise and shine." He waited until there was some sign of wakefulness, and then he said, "Breakfast?"

Indeed, Ruslan had in his hands a small and neatly wrapped package. Inside there would be some strips of salted meats and chunks of dried fruit.

Goffred cracked a grin. Jerked a thumb toward Ruslan. "He owes me."

"That I do."

It was only with Goffred's help that Ruslan was able to reach a deal with Herman, seeing as how Goffred had a bit more gear to bargain with, and now he did have a debt incurred to his caravan friend. A debt he intended to repay once they managed to pillage back the wares of the caravan from the unsuspecting, victory-drunk raiders.

Maranae

 

[Maranae]

Broken dreams. Always the same ones every single night, the same muddled and confused mess of images. Maranae drifted among a sea of glittering shards; memories or strange echoes from the humanity that had been stripped from her? She couldn't say and would not have understood the question either way.

The faintest sound, barely perceptible movement roused her senses almost immediately. Some feline or canine thing in her allowed her to rest while not remaining utterly vulnerable. Ruslan hadn't even spoken his first words before her eyes opened, practically glowing in the faint moonlight. For a moment there was nothing intelligent in them, only something feral and inhuman. A blink, and a different light glowed within.

She sat up stiffly, joints cracking as she did and the detritus of the forest floor falling away. At some point she had curled in on herself like a dog and slept.

She stared at him in silence for a moment, then look at what he offered. And hesitated. Hunger gnawed at her spine like an old friend - it never truly vanished - but she was not in any way near the state she had been in when she snatched the last morsel.

She cocked her head to one side. She could smell what was offered, particularly the meat and salt. She looked a question at Ruslan. It was not a common occurrence that kindness was shown to her, least of all things being given to her without some expectation in return. Never mind that the unspoken expectation here was that she tear living beings apart, limb from limb.

To make an example, as Mama had said.

That worthy drifted over, eyes deeply underscored by dark bags. She hadn't been a particularly lovely woman to begin with, but the haggard weight of a night spent virtually sleepless she looked much worse.

Mara tentatively took the offered parcel from as Mama spoke. "Get your gear together," she said gruffly. Cast an appraising eye to Maranae, and scowled. "Need you up front. Take point, since you can see in the dark better than we can," she said. It was light enough that the others could see, but to her eyes the world was as bright as day, if in shades of black and white. The beast woman stood slowly, stretching and unwrapping the gifted meal before turning to look in the distance the way they would go. She offered the unwrapped parcel back to Ruslan, minus the salted meat - she was strictly a carnivore, and could not stomach fruits and vegetables well.

She paused for a moment, searching for the words she needed.

"Thank you," she said after a moment. She offered a bestial smile that almost made her beautiful if you ignored the teeth, and then turned to follow the grumping caravan leader.

 

[Ruslan Gildal]

"You're welcome," Ruslan said. He watched Maranae move on ahead, and then the wave of forward motion swept up him and Goffred in its nudging impetus as well, and they started out with the rest of the ragged band of survivors.

"Not a big fan of apples, huh?" Goffred commented, eyeing the dried fruits left in the package in Ruslan's hand. "Or are those pear slices? Banana? I don't know. I never know until I take a bite of that stuff."

"Did you want a bite?"

"Hell yes, I want a bite, I'm starving."

Ruslan grinned a little. "Deduct it from what I owe you."

"Alright, mister merchant man, what's the going rate for dried apples to gold?"

"I don't know." Ruslan pinched a few of the hard slices together and popped them into his mouth. "But I think they are pears."

"Are those more expensive?"

"You tell me, mister merchant man."

The two men shared a laugh and shared the fruits as they walked. But such friendly banters would soon have to be dispensed with and silence left to reign. Business was to be concluded this morning, bloody business, and one could hope but not quite know for certain if he or she would see the sun reach high noon this day.

* * * * *​

Their walk, short as it was, served as small prelude indeed. Now they were crouched behind the natural cover granted by the forest, the barest and slightest hints of the raiders' encampment visible only by sustained effort and finding the right angle from their vantage.

Ruslan had his fighting axe in hand. A potent weapon, the national weapon of Gild as well, but not the most impactful option in his arsenal. Though no magic was slung about yesterday, it did not necessarily mean that the raiders wanted for a mage, and if they did have one amongst their ranks, Ruslan resolved to take it upon himself to engage that threat and eliminate it swiftly.

He glanced off to one side. Saw Squint getting his bow ready.

Then he glanced toward Mara. Much of this depended upon her, upon how effective that "example" would be at breaking the morale of the raiders' superior numbers. The gods had seen to her being here; and now, as was their way, it was left to her, this small but crucial fork in the path of their combined destinies.

Maranae

 

[Maranae]

Dark for them. Bright for her.

She moved in silence with everyone else, all the words that could have been said burned from her with that brief conversation earlier. A ghost of a memory said she had been chatty, once. Not so now, not when every word had a cost on her mental stamina. She had not been made to speak, after all; it was an unhappy coincidence to those that had made her that she retained the capacity for speech, however limited.

She looked to Ruslan, saw the look in his eyes that told of a certain eagerness to be about it. Looked for Mama, who simply nodded at her and then returned her attention to the camp they could not quite see in the dark. The others had little regard for her, simply another dumb mercenary that got paid to hit things.

In silence she arrived. In silence she departed.

It was not the silence of a human moving and trying not to make noise. It was the silence of a predator stalking prey. Something sang in her blood as she moved carefully, leather wrapped feet unnervingly quiet. This was a hunt, and hunting was something she did very well. Usually for her own food, but... the circumstance required this.

Through trees and undergrowth, making nothing that could be conceived of as an unnatural sound. In her field of a view she could see two sentries on the ground and one aloft; the one aloft was wide awake, eyes wide and searching the gloom. The sentry closest to her was awake too, but barely; the other leaned against a tree. The slow, steady breathing told that he or she was asleep standing up.

An unenviable position right then.

Sneaking up on the watchful warden was ridiculously easy. Mara slipped up behind him, unnoticed, and quickly put a be-clawed hand over his mouth. His muffled shout carried no further than her ears, and she twisted his neck sharply before he could even really struggle against her. Not that he had the strength to do so, of course.

She dropped his body. The fellow in the tree looked in her direction suddenly, but said nothing. Likely assumed that his companion had simply made some noise while moving.

She looked back into the gloom, then continued on.

Beyond the handful of sentries she came across a veritable warehouse of goods. Their wagons were there, of course, but so were others. Crates stood on the forest floor, some pried open and their contents visible to the world. Here and there among carts, crates, and wagons lie the prone bodies of the thieves that had claimed these goods.

Rounding a corner, she came face to face with someone rousing themselves. Scarred face with bleary eyes widened as she came into view. "'ey, now, wot..."

He got no further. She jumped forward and slashed at his face with her claws, gouging flesh and scraping bone. The piercing shriek of pain and surprise cut through the darkness, as clear as a clarion call to begin the butchery.

 

[Ruslan Gildal]

Ruslan, Goffred, and others were slinking silently into position. The body of a raider, once alive, once watchful, fell to the forest floor somewhere off to Ruslan's left—Squint's work.

Those wagons were ahead, featuring all of the booty both from Mama Bear's caravan and from elsewhere. Ruslan felt a small tinge of admiration for the brutish men, almost cracked a smirk to reveal the same. The region of Campania, in which lay Gild his home, was not unfamiliar with brigandage from outlaws and full-on raids from its many constituent rivaling powers—it was called the Bloody Crescent for a reason. These men here? They'd kept themselves busy, hadn't they? Grown fat on their success, mayhap, so Ruslan could only hope. Such complacency could only serve him, Goffred, Maranae, Mama Bear, everyone here now engaged in this morning's surprise attack.

Ruslan and Goffred had at least gotten one man each before the alarm was sounded. Ruslan had carefully come beside his target raider, knelt next to his rough bedroll, and then in the same motion clamped his free hand down on his mouth and raked the blade of his axe across the sleeping man's neck. Even in the morning's gloom could the whites of the man's eyes be seen, his gaze and all its shock and panic alighting in an instant from sleep, all his last gasps and gurgles muffled by Ruslan's palm. It didn't take long for the man to meet his gods, and Ruslan felt no trouble for the act or the manner in which it was done; yesterday's ambush, for certain, was proof enough that much the same would have been done to him, if this raider or any of his comrades had just a bit more fortune to call their own.

Alas, the quiet was broken, as was to be expected. The shriek from Maranae's victim led to a general rousing, a hurried scramble, and now with stealth abandoned Ruslan let out a bellowing war cry and with his axe simply leapt into action, placing his faith in Regel that a portion of his divine wrath would be lent him this day.

Maranae

 

[Maranae]

The coppery scent of blood filled the air in intoxicating waves. Mara stood there as the blood tried to entice what sentience she had away from her. It was a familiar battle with herself, and while she stood there fighting against the beast, her opponent took the initiative from her. Ruined face clutched with one hand, he snapped up a knife and drove it in to her chest.

Same old song and dance. The sting of steel sliding up against bone and skittering across ribs until it bit in to her side was distant. Still enough to bring her back to the hear and now. With a low growl in the back of her throat, eyes wide with surprise and the narcotic of blood filling her mind she struck back with a backhand blow.

That sent the fellow staggering backward. She darted forward, blood slicking her side, and ripped the arm with the knife off. The shriek of pain before paled in comparison to the mortal wail of agony; she threw the severed limb aside and picked the victim up on in hand by his throat and squeezed until the choking stopped and cartilage and bone crunched in her grip.

She turned in time to see another two come round a corner. They were better armed and more aware than the first two she had come upon. Her head snapped to them, eyes glowing with reflected light. "Demon," one of them said, readying his blade. The other went to raise her bow.

Maranae dropped the dead man and dashed for the pair. Blood rolled down her skin, spattered her face; the sound coming from her throat was unnatural - the sound of a feral cat on the hunt. She plowed into the woman with the bow before she could get an arrow knocked even as the blade from the other slammed painfully into the one still strapped to her back. There was nothing elegant about how she fought; claws tore through cheap leather far too quickly. Before the sword-bearing fellow could get another swing in she had already disemboweled the archer and turned to face him while she tried to crawl away to safety.

"D-demon..," he managed. There was no expression on Mara's face as she swung at him with her natural weapons. He dodged aside, brought the blade to the fore. A piercing shriek from above told of an arrow from Squint finding its mark; she cut her eyes to the side and almost ate a foot of steel. As it was, she caught the blade in her hands and hissed in pain as the notched edge tore her skin. "There's a d-demon in the camp! Run!"

Still gripping the blade, she pushed him off balance with it. While he teetered she seemed to remember the thing on her back and brought it round. The bleeding of her hands did not offer a good grip, but the pain was too mute for her to care. Certainly not enough to stop a parry, awkward and slow. Her counter to his attack missed, too. And left a furrow several inches deep and a new chip in the rough steel of her weapon.

Two more came to his cries, one with no weapon in hand and another with a blade. Both blanched when they beheld the ichor-covered demoness (as they saw it) facing off with one of their companions, one dead man near to hand and another still feebly crawling away trailing their viscera behind them.

 

[Ruslan Gildal]

Fear was a powerful weapon. Battles, by and large, were won and lost based on morale. A good general truth about men was this: they, despite what they might say, did not fight for honor or glory or any other high-minded ideals, they fought to win. And if it appeared as though the chance of victory was slim, and growing slimmer by the moment, fear introduced a simple remedy: run.

And it was not long before that very word, run, graced Ruslan's ears. Even above the din of battle could the shriek be heard. Despite all her reservations, Maranae seemed to be quite given to the fulfillment of her appointed task. The fear, the shock, the confusion, all of it needed to spread, to infect the other raiders throughout the camp and leave them with the alluring temptation to drop everything, to trust in the surety of their feet more than the chances of their sword-arms, and to think it better to live another day than to risk everything over their loot.

The initial assault was going well. The tide of fortune was, at present, firmly with Mama Bear's caravaneers.

Ruslan engaged in his bloody work with vigor, hacking through feebly raised enemy shields with his axe and then setting upon the overwhelmed and alarmed raiders behind said shields. In training for war in Gild, Ruslan had to the best of his ability cultivated a warrior's mindset, one that went against the good general truth previously in his thoughts. And one of the facets of such a mindset was focused fury, giving oneself over without reservation to the exigencies of battle while still it raged.

Somewhere in the flurry Ruslan suffered a bash from a shield rim to his right arm. A pain permeated through, his grip on his axe and even command of the arm itself weakened, but he switched his weapon to his opposite hand while Goffred covered him and together they pressed on, meeting their foes as they came with an aggression that—with any good fortune—would make the other raiders behind them think twice.

Just a little more.

Let fear take them, if not from the pale thought of an actual demon wrecking havoc, then from the very real weapons arrayed against them by human hands.

Maranae

 

[Maranae]

A red mist threatened to drop over her sight. Some feral, terrible thing threatened to slither from the back of her mind, to come crawling from the primordial base of her skull. It was an interesting dance, dealing out melee mayhem while fighting the same old war inside her skull.

Her opponents were terrified. So was Maranae, but of a different fate.

The blade wielding foe before her struck again, quick but not very sure. These were brigands, not soldiers. Mara sidestepped the attack as though sensing it before seeing it, and swung her blade about hip-height with all of her considerable strength behind it. He attempted to fend it off, but the great weapon along with her prodigious strength meant that his short sword was batted aside with little effect. Her blade bit into his hip, angled up, and cleaved three quarters of the way through his body before binding in bone. His shriek was short lived; the flood of blood and body fluids was so swift his consciousness was taken from him in seconds.

Something stirred in her heart. Sudden heat flashed, and she felt her hair frizzle a little as flames erupted round her - a hellish inferno that-

-winked out. The unarmed man looked shocked as his spell was dispersed with little damage - her pale skin had turned rosy from the burn, hair frazzled. Taken with the blood leaking from the gaping rent across her ribs and the blood dripping from her hands, it was ineffective.

She turned, eyes glowing in the dim light, and bared her teeth. The wizard swallowed hard, and began to back away as his companion - in a foolish display of bravery - went to bar her way with his blade in hand.

She turned to face him, leaving her own weapon behind. Behind her eyes, the war for her sense of self deepening as her wounds mounted. Wounds she could not feel as far as pain was concerned (except the rent across her chest), but that sapped her strength slowly regardless..

She took a step forward. The swordsman did likewise while the magic man decided to bugger off.

 

[Ruslan Gildal]

The flash of fire, there and gone—almost like a crack of lightning in a darkened night. Ruslan shot a glance that way. Too late was he to see what precisely had happened with the magical conflagration and Maranae, for as quickly as the wizard evoked the fire had it been dispersed by Maranae's own innate gift (the sort of gift which, in and of itself, would see her held in high and holy regard in Gild as it so happened). But the flash had been enough to know that a spell, magic, had been used. The raiders did have a hedge mage amongst their ranks.

"Goffred!"

"Yeah??" the same replied, staring down two raiders from over his shield, these two men rather reluctant to try their chances and looking to be far more ready to turn tail.

"Watch my back!"

"Oh shi—"

Goffred almost stumbled for having to pivot around so hard to follow after Ruslan. The latter had broken into a sprint, crossing the short distance of the battlefield that was the camp. Curse his arm! It didn't feel broken, no, but that bash Ruslan had suffered left it feeling tingly and near entirely robbed of sensation. But even with his offhand, if he was quick enough, he could get at that mage and end him. In Praetor training, it had been stressed repeatedly that the most vulnerable a mage would ever be was in that first crucial moment of surprise when his or her magic inexplicably failed him.

But, though Ruslan would have liked to pursue the wizard, it turned out the swordsman who set upon Maranae had a friend. A big hulking friend, a man naked from the waist up who had a good half foot on Ruslan and who wielded a large two-handed spiked mace.

Ruslan said hurriedly to Goffred, "Change of plan, watch my front! F—!" The heels of his boots dug into the soil. He grit his teeth, the sudden stop the difference between life and death, for the Mace Man's weapon swung downward just inches from Ruslan's nose and struck the ground with a hearty thump.

Dear Regel, his skull could have been there, cracked open like a melon during a rowdy festival.

Maranae

 

[Maranae]

Blade swung down. The red-head twisted out of the way, ignoring the distant sting as steel sliced through her leather and flesh, grazing her shoulder and adding a new flow of bright blood to the rest. She did not back away, she did not cede a step. Instead, she continued forward into the man's reach.

Funny thing about sword. Get in too close, and they become almost an impediment to a fight.

Maranae grabbed the fellow by his rude armor, and he countered by shifting his grip and dropping the steel pommel of the blade on top of her head. She hissed in pain and staggered for a moment, but retained her grip. Panic rose in her assailants eyes as her own cleared. "You-," she hissed in a gravelly, angry voice.

He went to strike her head again. She picked him up off the ground with both hands and then threw him several feet through the air. Before he had even reached the apex of his flight she had started to rush forward, and as he hit the ground she unleashed a furious assault with her bare hands, dropping to straddle him so she could tear his face and chest apart. Blood and ribbons of flesh went flying before she dropped and ripped his throat out with her teeth.

She sat up, panting, eyes roving for the next victim. Screams ripped through the now gritty shadows of earliest morning, and from a point in the direction that the wizard had ran off, light flashed and the tang of magic wafted through the air. The sound of clashing weapons and shouting rose from there - a concerted defense hastily cobbled together in the brief minutes of the fight.

Maranae rose to her feet and turned to face Mace Man, looking like nothing so much as a hell-spawned demon, chest rising and falling like a bellows.

The coppery scent of blood was a drug, and she was in its grip. Licking the blood from her lips inspired a dangerous hunger, and that hunger drove her to dart at Mace Man from he flank.

 

[Ruslan Gildal]

The Mace Man was putting up a hell of a fight. Wide, devastating swings of his two-handed mace to keep Maranae, Ruslan, and Goffred all beyond reach. He was more on the defensive, fighting three opponents as he was, but such a distinction mattered little. He kept up with his positioning, backpedaling and adjusting, this so that Maranae and Goffred, who was making the effort to exploit his other flank, had no easy opening; indeed, after gigantic swings of his mace, his meaty fists could be thrown in backhands or his gargantuan tree trunk-like legs thrown out in kicks. Goffred caught one such kick square in his shield and it sent him stumbling backward and down onto his back, and with all urgent haste he had to scramble to recover.

Ruslan, at the Mace Man's front, felt the wind from his swinging mace more than once. By the gods, that wind was almost a weapon in itself! This man, though a good four to six feet shorter and certainly lacking all the extra weight and bulk, could've been adopted by the Gildan ogres back home.

Already Ruslan knew he was pushing his luck. One of the Mace Man's swings would surely hit as time went on, and just one hit would assuredly be fatal. This needed to end; that wizard, wrecking his own havoc, was somewhere around the gathering of wagons, and nothing could even yet be spoken of him until the Mace Man was down.

Goffred was back onto his feet now. The Mace Man was prepping another arc of his weapon.

"Catch!" Ruslan yelled, his shout not so much tearing attention away from Maranae and Goffred as much as Ruslan throwing his axe right at him. Left-handed throws certainly weren't his best, but, well, a pinch was a pinch.

The axe only clipped the Mace Man minorly on the forearm, drawing but meager blood before spiraling off, but maybe this could be the opening for Mara or Goffred?

Maranae

 

[Maranae]

Saving throw v. madness - difficulty 5: 1d20 = 2

Whispers of madness circled in her head, their promises beguiling. It was hunger that drove its iron spike into her head, a red-hot brand that became ever more demanding the more hurts she took. Given her ... unique ... fighting style, those mounted quickly.

She twisted out of the way of the heavy melee fighter when he noted her initial advance and swung the heavy two-handed weapon. She neither flinched at the closeness of the strike, nor did she back down. She could smell the blood, could feel her own pounding through her veins and arteries.

Some small voice in the back of her head called for her to stop. Some small voice in the back of her head shied away from the bloodletting and the violence - a part of her that wanted to play, to have fun, to create and explore. A child - the thing she was crafted from. The life that she had been stolen from.

But the beast was strong. Too strong. An axe flashed, splattering a little more blood from Mace Man and the very scent of blood and flesh drove her to near madness. Her wounds demanded food to replace what was lost. A feral growl ripped from her, yellow eyes flashing-

-and then she darted in. The attack by Ruslan was not enough to distract Mace Man from the wild threat she posed - he had seen her tear someone apart. He spun and swung his weapon.

It connected solidly with her chest. The sound of crunching bone was loud, but not as loud as the cry of pain from Maranae. There was an edge to that pained sound, something even wilder then before. Before the blow could send her flying, she grabbed his weapon. Before he could react, ignoring pain and safety, she hauled herself up the haft of the weapon.

And buried her fangs in his arm, ripping away a chunk of flesh. He dropped his weapon, and then she was truly on him, favoring the side that had received the blow. Her teeth flashed, stained crimson as she bit him again, claws hooking in as he battered her with fists and elbows, tried headbutting her to get her off.

But she would not be stopped. Hunger overrode her sense of self, and she began to tear the man apart as a half dozen raider came into sight, the mage with them. The final stand, the last big push to put paid to the caravaners that had the audacity to try and reclaim what was theirs.

 

[Ruslan Gildal]

Ruslan took the first opportunity presented to rush forward and scoop up his axe. Weapon in hand again he stepped back from range of the Mace Man's mace, yet, as he came up alongside Goffred, such caution proved not to be warranted. Goffred stood transfixed with shock that bordered ever so slightly on horror. Ruslan himself then got a full view of what Goffred was looking at, and even he was taken aback for a moment.

What ferocities of war Ruslan had steeled himself to face and endure, even to embody himself, did not adequately prepare him for the sight of Maranae with the Mace Man. Perhaps it had something to do with her simplicity, her reluctance, her shyness even, that made the sight both tragic and appalling—in that a world where justice existed still nonetheless could produce this outcome.

There wasn't much time for reflection. Six armed men, all with a mind to fight rather than flee, came round the bend of a wagon, and with them, behind the bulwark of their shields, was that blasphemous mage. It was too much, and quickly could they be overwhelmed by numbers—this being Ruslan's snap thought.

"Back, back, back!" He said to Goffred, who by the sight of the men and Ruslan's urging was brought out of his fixation and proceeded to do just that. Ruslan then called, "Mara! Mara, fall back!"

She was tough, yes. Unnaturally so. But just how many wounds could she endure? Ruslan didn't know, and even with her help they would still be outnumbered two-to-one. Falling back to get help from Mama Bear, from Herman, from Squint, this seemed the sound option.

But Ruslan couldn't know just how much the feral haze afflicted Maranae in that moment.

Maranae