Fate - First Reply Twice Bitten

[Njáll]

Echo Falls - The Reach

"Vyekkelis." Njáll said as he used the butt of his hatchet to prod one of the corpses strewn about the village. His eyes casting over the hunks of meet that had been torn and stripped away. Thrown aside as though they were offal not worth consuming.

"Fuck off." The grating voice of Turos echoed out behind him. The leather of his armor creaking as he slung himself off his horse and trudged over towards the Nordwiir. His eyes casting on the scene consideringly. "We've been here five minutes, these people are barely whole, how the shit could you tell a thing about what's been here?"

Njáll glanced back towards his companion, face an uneven mask.

He did not like Turos, generally speaking.

The man was a good enough hunter, but he never stopped complaining. Every second word was about how miserable the road was or how his haunches hurt from riding all day. If he'd just shut the fuck up, Turos would practically be his favorite partner to work with. Mostly because he let the Nordwiir take the lead.

"Liver is gone." The northerner said as he nudged more of the flesh to the side. "Ripped with claws, not teeth."

Slowly he stood, glancing at his companion. "Let's check for Survivors. Doubt it got the whole village."

Turos grunted, unable to argue with the line of thinking. Vyekkelis weren't exactly known for their merciful ways, but nor were they particularly intelligent. A good enough hiding place would keep someone safe, even if an entire pack has hit the village. "I'll check the tavern."

He stated plainly, heading off before the other man could argue.

 

[Emmeline Hildebrandt]

An armored figure hunched over another corpse, though this victim was not quite as fortunate as many of the others. While their deaths had all come brutally, the others died swiftly in comparison. A gloved hand moved to her waist, pulling a small knife from her hip. It was for more practical uses, such as splitting food or cutting twine, but this night that blade would be a tool of mercy for a suffering girl, barely a teenager.

"This will hurt, but for just a moment," Emmeline said, and though her words were meant in earnest, there was a distinct lack of any real emotion in them. It was as if the former guardswoman compartmentalized her emotions, if any were present at all.

Guide the point of the blade to the girl's temple, Emmeline thrust her arm sharply, penetrating her skull and driving the blade into her brain. Then, setting the now deceased youth carefully upon the ground, she rose to her feet. Droplets of blood dripped from the flat of the blade as her arm fell to her side. Her head lifted at the sound of others and she looked toward Njall and Turos.

"What did this?" she demanded, as if expecting the pair to know.

 

[Njáll]

Njáll stopped just short of the tavern as he stepped by Emmeline, pausing for a brief moment as he considered, then answered simply. "Vyekkelis."

The gruff words of the Nordwiir might have seemed almost standoffish, but that was simply the mans ways.

"Leeches." He could not describe the creatures any other way. Some called the beasts Vampires, but they had none of the elegance that such creatures found their myths shourded in. A Vyekkelis had only one drive, one function, killing and consuming.

The liver was to them as Blood was to many other monsters. "They will be close by still."

He continued.

"I do not suggest being on your own." Whether that was the Northman's version of an invitation to follow was difficult to tell. But he did not linger in the street, and instead began to stalk towards the half-collapsed inn. The axe in his hand flickering to his proper grip.

 

[Emmeline Hildebrandt]

Leeches. That name was far more familiar to Emma. She pinched her tongue between her teeth, watching Njall step past her in his turn toward the inn. There was something about his movement, the brevity of his words that amused the woman. She was not one of many herself, and that was why succumbing to the call of the blade and servitude to others was her way of life.

"Neater, where I come from," she said, the words barely audible above the crunch of snow under their feet. Emma didn't consider whether it was an offer to follow: he made a suggestion and seeing as how she'd just taken the last breaths from a dying girl, there wasn't exactly anyone else to follow but the pair.

She lifted her arm, sliding the blade along the crook of her arm where only cloth breached the gap between plates of metal. Clearing it of as much blood as she could, she slipped it back into its holster at her hip.

Near the inn, a broadsword lay plunged into the earth and as they drew close, Emma approached it. Her hands, small but strong, curled around its hilt and almost effortlessly, the guard turned warrior pulled her cherished blade from the ground and cast it over her shoulder and across her back.

"There's nothing alive," is all she said when they crossed the threshold, the woman lingering closer to the door. She'd gotten her fill of the gore--it reminded her too much of her own past.

 

[Njáll]

Njall pressed inside the doorway regardless of the life left within. His gaze sweeping over the inside of the tavern and the graveyard within.

Emmeline was completely right.

Like the rest of the town the Inn was the sight of a slaughter. A dozen or so lay dead within, each of them rent to a pulp. The darkness of the day did not allow him the best look, but one did not need clear sight to get a picture of what had happened here. "They ate well."

The Northman commented, frowning ever so slightly before he half turned in the doorway back towards his new companion.

"It'll make finding them ha-" Before he could get the last of his words free, something within the tavern moved. He heard a loud scrape against the wooden floors, and as he whirled a figure suddenly darted towards him.

A hulking mass of gray flesh and blackened claws darted forward. The monstrous form of one of the degenerate vampires hurtling at Njall within the span of a breath. The Nordwiir pulling up his hatchet just in time to catch the creatures maw upon it's hilt.

Snapping jaws bearing down at him as the two went crashing into the ground, splattering mud and cold water across Emmeline as the two went falling down.

 

[Emmeline Hildebrandt]

Emmeline kept her lips parted just enough that she did not have to bear the heavy, coppery stench of the inn-turned-abatoir's innards. From just a few steps inside, the sound behind as her had the warrior turning on booted heel. She was not as quick to jump into the fray as monster and man tumbled into snow melted only by the warmth of the formerly living. Dark specks of mud and congealing blood splattered the woman's face, but she seemed entirely unbothered.

When it came to two bodies gripping one another with the want to end each other's life, introducing a broadsword was not the most delicate task. One slight miscalculation, as with any weapon and others in the way, Emma could completely and utterly miss. With practiced balance and shifting of her weight, the warrior pulled her blade from its strap with the same unusual grace that had seemingly plucked it back from the ground.

The blade was heavy, but her gloves were made to withstand its edge through most minor cuts. Suddenly, bringing the blade level to the ground and maintaining that lowered position, she charged the short distance from door way to wrestling things, and drove her blade into the side of the creature's torso. A sudden shift in weight had her feet sliding against her momentum as she suddenly arched the blade upward, sweeping the writhing creature off Njall. As the blade arced back down toward the ground, the vampire's bloodied body slid off her sword and landed just a couple feet away.

An unearthly howling noise, a desperate cry for any of its pack that might still be near, loosed its lips and the warrior moved quickly, bringing a heavy boot down on the thing's skull with a crunching squelch. For good measure, she dug her heel in before looking back at the other.

"They are different," she acknowledged, as if confirming her earlier statement solely for her own ears. Once she was certain the creature would not rise again, she brought her sword upward to rest against her shoulder. Green eyes swept back and forth, hot air escaping her lips as she sought to ease her breathing once more. Snow crunched under her foot as she returned to the Nordwiir's side.

"How heavy was it?" she asked, offering a gloved hand downward toward him. Before he could answer though, she retracted her hand to leave him to get back to his feet on his own. She could hear crunching just outside the edges of the village. "More come."

 

[Njáll]

A breath drew into the Nordwiir's lungs, and he gave an appreciative nod up towards Emmeline as she offered him a hand. The silent acknowledgment that without her help, he very likely would have ended up with a tooth in his skull.

He reached up to grasp her hand, but heard the howl before her hand snapped away.

In an instant Njall shifted, rolling his weight to the side and scrambling quickly to his feet. His second hatchet quickly pulled free from the loop on his belt, and his voice boomed out among the buildings. "TUROS!"

The Nordwiir called to the other Hunter.

At home, there was no tribe, no family that one sacrificed himself for. In the Lost Isles it was every warrior for themselves. Survival was what mattered most. The Dark Gods had preached that fact from the second his people had been born.

Yet in the Summerlands it was different. Here the Dark Gods did not watch so closely, and so Njall would do his best to keep those with him alive. "To Us!"

As he shouted, the first of the creatures suddenly whirled around one of the nearby buildings. It's haunches thick with muscle throwing itself forward directly at where Emmeline stood. A hatchet suddenly flying by her head, and burying itself in the creatures skull.

"Get inside!" He called. "So they can't surround us!"

 

[Emmeline Hildebrandt]

The force of the hatchet might have dealt with the creature, but it did not stop its momentum. As the monster crashed into Emmeline's armored body, she took several steps back. That answered her query about its weight. Removing one hand from the hilt of her blade, she shoved the creature away as her back collided with the door frame of the inn. When Njall yelled for Turos, her green stare twisted in the direction she'd last seen the other hunter.

Fortunately, he came--but there was something, no somethings on the heel of the man. With her own adversary dead courtesy of the Nordwiir, her free hand immediately turned to her blade. She was the closest to the door into the establishment, so she refused to be the first that entered. It was moments like this where the warrior cursed her lack of bow--and even more her lack of any skill with it. Breathing inwardly deeply, it was the woman's turn to bellow at Turos, and gods it was loud for such a small statured warrior. Perhaps that was the real reason she had been part of the city watch.

"DUCK!" she yelled, not all that confident with her throwing abilities either. None the less, she allowed her great sword to sink toward the ground as she reached to her waist for the very blade she'd ended the unfortunate youth with. No other warnings were offered as tugged the knife free and suddenly hurled it, seemingly right at the hunter. Gods, she hoped he ducked, 'cause the blade was certainly going to sink into something, it was just a matter of what.

Returning her hand to her blade, she swung it upward and back to her shoulder to rest and she finally looped around the corner and into the building. "Hurry!" she called sharply, propping her blade against the inner wall while she reached for the heaviest thing she could find to barricade the entrance once the two were in.

 

[Njáll]

Turos ducked, no, it was more accurate to say he fell. Dashing into the muck and mud and sliding just as Emmeline's blade slipped over his head and into one of the monsters. Njall let out an impressed whistle, reaching out to grab the other Hunter's arm and pulling him up and off the ground.

"Go!" He ushered just after his companion pulled out her greatsword once more.

Within seconds he and Turos both turned, whirling themselves forward and practically jumping through the open door of the building. As Emmeline darted inside after them, she would find Njall already moving one of the tables.

With her help the Nordwiir threw it against the closed doorway, a loud thud echoing out seconds later as one of the creatures crashed against the barricades. "Windows."

He pointed out, but it was already too late.

"Fuck me, these things are quick." Turos complained as he pulled the crossbow from his back and quickly threw a bolt into it's strut. The loud twang ringing out as he let loose a bolt and buried it into one of the creatures skulls.

"They'll keep coming as long as the Alpha is alive." Njall said as he began to quickly look around the Inn, darting towards the bar. "We need to lure it out."

The Nordwiir called to his companions as he began to scoop up bottles of liquor and scraps of tablecloth.

 

[Emmeline Hildebrandt]

Emmeline was grateful that Turos heard her--though his drop seemed to be a bit harder than she'd expected. That worked in his favor though, because if he hadn't hit the ground as fast as he did, it might very well have been his skull that her knife plunged into. Then, they were moving. Njall assisted Turos to his feet and as the two men barreled past her and into the ruined establishment, the warrior swept up her blade with unnatural ease, a comfort born of countless hours of training with it.

It just sucked that it wasn't practical for quick-paced combat, and it was for that reason that Emma wore the armor she did. Hefting the blade up with both hands, she charged in after the others, moving quickly past both as Njall moved to barricade the door. His call of a threat at the windows preceded the movement of her gaze by what felt like a fraction of a second. For all the lethargy that came with lugging around such huge arms, the warrior was every bit as alert as someone more agile than she. There was room for the woman to learn to dance with smaller blades, but it wasn't a thought that occurred to her--nor would it now.

The first window to break was not the one that Emmeline was looking at, but she heard the thud of Turos's arrow as it struck true. That was when she saw the faint shadow outside the one she was watching, a clear sign that it would be the next one breached. Hoisting her blade up again, the warrior drew up alongside the window just as it cracked and one of the creatures burst through the glass. Sharp corners tore at its flesh, but it was not a serious wound and did little to distract the fiend.

As its nostrils flared, Emmeline brought her blade down with a sudden, loud splitting of flesh, bone, and wood. The creature's head fell, bouncing freely from its throne to rest like a bauble at Njall's feet. Perhaps even in time to be crunched as the hunter went for alcohol with which to craft a bomb, Emma assumed. She'd seen that particular trick more times than she could count.

Remaining at the window and ready to be head another one of the monsters should it come through, the warrior's hard green stare swept beyond both men and the remnants of what might have been the inside of a fairly decent establishment at one point.

"How does your plan work?" she asked, though if there was meant to be any intonation in her voice, it was lacking. "Will the fire draw the alpha?"

 

[Njáll]

"No." Njall answered quickly as he threw his hatchet onto the bar as he quickly began to work.

Bottle after bottle was uncorked, the heaviest of the alcohols poured quickly over the rags he'd taken as he began to craft the flaming cocktails. "But killing enough of the beasts will."

Though the Leeches were not exactly intelligent, they were pack animals. Working together was within their nature, though only so they might gather themselves a greater feast. The Alpha would come calling, but only when it was clear that those below it could not make the kill.

"Turos!" He called to the other Hunter as he reloaded his crossbow. "Flint."

The other hunter swore, but quickly threw the small metal sparker towards his companion. Quickly lighting two of the bottles. "The screams will help."

Njall said, offering Emmaline the first crack of a smile before he turned on his heel and threw the bottle out one of the windows. The cascading alcohol catching into a burst of flame as the bottle struck one of the creatures. It's skin sizzling, and it's maw opening in a cry of pain.

 

[Emmeline Hildebrandt]

Emma couldn't argue with Njall's logic, and something about that seemed to result in a wrinkling of her nose. Her lips thinned as she grimaced and she leaned around the corner of the window quickly enough to catch a glimpse if anything was coming, but not so slow as to lose an eye to flying, sharpened claw. A screech echoed through the window just as her head dipped back and this time, her reflexes brought the massive blade upward, knees bending so that she could shift her force into the upward strike.

The creature's skull fell away like the one that had come before it, but not before thick blood spattered the woman's face. It reeked, but then she'd never been fond of that smell before. Especially when it was fresh; she could handle bodies dead long enough to be cool to the touch, but something about fresh corpses still turned her stomach. The sheer fact the monsters appeared humanoid was almost enough to trigger that repulsion.

"Then you better h--" the rest of her statement cut short as the alcohol laden, cloth filled bottle flew through the window just a little further from her just as another creature burst through it. The howling terror that erupted from the creature, followed by the smell of burning flesh and hair, assaulted her nose.

A second creature tried to stop before it collided with the flaming torch that was once its brethren and flailed backward as the alcohol that spilled over the snow outside the window came alive with flickering orange light. It licked at the wall of the establishment, and in Emma's gut she knew the building would catch fire before they were done tonight.

Another howl, this one more commanding, echoed from the distance, but it increased in volume with unnatural speed as the master of this group called out in fury. Emmeline's green gaze flicked toward Njall.

"That one doesn't sound happy," she stated, not caring how obvious her observation was to the others. To Turos, she asked, "Is he always so creative when it comes to slaughter?"

 

[Njáll]

The hunter let out a bark of a laugh. "It's that northern blood!"

Njall did not even seem to notice the other pair shouting about him as he swept through the room. Hatchet in one hand and fire-bomb in the other. He rushed through the maze of tavern tables and moved towards another of the open windows. The clawing beast there finding itself victim to both axehead and flame as the Nordwiir sunk his weapon into it's skull.

"Comes with a touch of madness I hear!" Turos couldn't help the grin that split his face. The man had worked with Njall often enough now to know his tactics weren't always...safe. For the northman, a job was a job, and one had to do whatever they could to get it done.

As he called out, flames began to lick at the tavern walls. "Careful you don't tra-"

Before the other Hunter could finish his sentence, there was a sudden creak, and then a loud crash as the front of the tavern exploded.

Pieces of timber and shards of wood splashed outward as the doorway and the barricade behind it were shattered into a thousand pieces. Not by a bottle of flame, but by a hulking mass of muscle and death. The Alpha of the leeches bursting through the wall with a crashing roar. It's great maw unhinging as it let out a roar that shouted for naught but death. "Seems the creativity worked."

Njall commented dryly, a rare grin spreading over his lips.