Revelation and Rescue (An SG RP)

[Dias]

Dias flew through the camp like a whirlwind. He moved erratically, changing direction constantly, but always heading towards the middle, where the prisoners were kept. He had been around Whitecloaks enough, had watched them and killed them enough, to know their system. He knew how they worked, and this night, that determined how he worked. This night, his hunting had a purpose. This was not reckless killing, this was precision. This was control, purpose. This was rescue.

 

Dias had many weapons, but only one true sword, his thakan’dari blade, Daghain. It had served him for years, drinking deep of blood. But this night, there could be no fear. Not yet. The sword was sheathed and strapped to his back. There could be no struggle, no terror in his enemies as he fought them. There could only be deaths, a simple instantaneous change from living to dead. For this reason he carried a dagger in each hand, both already wet with blood, glistening in darkness.

 

On silent feet he descended on the Whitecloak who had just turned his back. The soldier never heard him coming, never knew he was there at all until Dias’ slippered foot came down on the back of his knee, pressing down, knocking him to his knees. A knife slit his throat before he had a chance to even register this. With his dying breath he saw another knife fly over his head and stick, up to the hilt, in the eye of his fellow guard. They dropped together, died together.

 

Dias retrieved his knives and looked up, already moving on. He saw his shadowy ally appear two or three tents ahead of him, unarmed, grabbing the wrist of a lone Whitecloak who stabbed at him. He pulled the man off balance, stepped in and brought one foot up to the soldier’s chin. It almost looked like a dance: the Whitecloak had lunged, been grabbed, manipulated, spin-kicked so hard it broke his neck, and was now being lowered, like a lover, to the wet grass beneath. The sleeping soldiers in the tents around them would’ve heard nothing.

 

The two assassins spoke no words as they fell into step together, sprinting on, flowing like the wind. They both knew the plan. On they flew, merely a breath, a gust, to the ones they came across. But those ones would never rise again.

They divided, without missing a step, when they came to the makeshift shelter the Questioners had erected in the middle of the camp. Dias’ comrade went left, and had gained the roof even faster than he had been running. Dias himself went right, sweeping around the building, looking for the door. There were no windows.

 

The plan was for them to scope out the building, and then storm it from two sides, but when Dias heard Riyk start to scream, inside, he forgot the plan. The wooden door, not made to withstand attack, shattered under the force of Dias’ kick. He took the whole scene in in a second.

 

There were three Whitecloak Questioners in the small one-roomed building, and two prisoners. Chains hung from the ceiling, holding both captives by their wrists. Alaina hung limp, unconscious or dead, covered in dirt, soot, bruises and blood. Riyk’s arms were straining against the chains binding him. His head was thrown back, being held back by his hair by a Questioner behind him. He was screaming his soul out. Another Questioner stood in front of him, holding the red-hot poker he’d shoved into Riyk’s left eye.

 

Something hurtled down through the chimney hole in the roof, something dressed in black. Dias knew, without needing anything else, that it was his comrade, the shadowy ally who had accompanied him through the camp, the man who had held him back when he tried to rush to Riyk in the burning forest, and in doing so had certainly saved Dias’ life. He was a man Dias had known long ago, a man he had taught. It was his favoured Apprentice, the boy he had taken in, years past, to train as his successor. The boy had stood for Dias when the men of Dark Torrent revolted, when the Assassin Circle had ordered Dias’ death. When Assassins and Dreadlords had closed in, Amagumo, an apprentice, had stood on Dias’ side, at his side, and drawn his sword. The last time Dias had seen him, he’d been backed into the corner of a courtyard of a burning building with a Myrddraal, outnumbered in numbers and strength by the insurgents. Dias, to his everlasting shame, had left Amagumo and Agapius to die there. As the Dwelling burned around them, they fought on, while Dias fled. He had always thought they gave their lives for him. In truth, they gave so much more.

 

Now Amagumo, having leapt down the chimney hole, had nowhere to land but the dying fire inside. His feet came down on either side of it, his blond head came up, and then it was official: that room belonged to the Assassins. Even as the poker-wielding Questioner turned, Amagumo kicked burning coals at his face. Dias, filled with the rage of what was being done to his Apprentices, had put away his knives and drawn Daghain. He cut Questioner’s head off with such force it swung his body around. As he came around again, he raised the blade, slicing the chains holding Alaina up. Thakan’dari blades were sharp. Alaina crumpled to the dirt floor.

 

The walls of the torture room were lined with instruments of pain. Amagumo was throwing knives, pokers, scalpels, anything he could reach, at the two remaining Questioners with blinding speed. One of them grabbed at a sword behind him. Dias cut off his arm at the elbow and shoved his metal-capped fingers into his eyes, squeezing viciously. He felt warm blood spurt onto his hand. Using his grip in the man’s face, he threw the wretched body back at the wall, which shuddered. Amagumo had taken care of the last man and was undoing Riyk’s chains.

 

Dias caught the apprentice as he fell. His good eye, surrounded by lines of exhaustion and agony, fixed on his master’s face. Despite what he’d been through, the light in his eye was clear. “Dias…†he croaked. “I told them… your name…â€

 

The information was of no relevance at that moment. Dias shrugged it off. “My eye…†gasped Riyk. He raised one hand shakily to it, and then wrenched out of Dias’ grip, vomiting. A lot of it looked to be blood. That wasn’t good.

 

“Riyk, there’s no time.†Dias told him. “We have to get out of here. Can you walk?†He pulled the apprentice to his feet.

 

“I can try.†Riyk gave a wry, one-eyes smile. The skin around his left eye was puffy and black, terribly burned.

 

Amagumo hoisted Alaina onto his shoulders. “She’s alive,†he said. “But she needs help. I can carry her, but you’ll have to take care of any trouble.â€

 

Dias nodded. “Riyk, you’ll just have to keep up.â€

 

They left the small building and hurriedly set off back across the camp. Sometimes when an arrow punctures flesh, it’s better to shove it the rest of the way through rather than try to pull it the way it came. Dias and Amagumo felt the same way about their exit from the camp. They may have exterminated any resistance along the way when they came in, but no doubt those bodies would be found, and the camp would be in uproar. This way, they would be facing more guards, but they wouldn’t be expecting attack as much as those who had discovered their dead friends. That, and Dias was going to steal some white cloaks.

 

The camp was waking, shouts ringing out everywhere. Obviously someone had realised there were intruders. In the confusion of men running to and fro, picking up weapons and dashing off this way and that, Dias and the others were able to avoid much notice, often hiding in empty tents and taking the quieter paths. The way out of the camp was largely improvisation. Any time Dias smelled a thread from a Whitecloak, he killed him. In the night, they didn’t even see the black sword in his hand.

 

The real trouble began when they were actually leaving the camp, passing the last tents, going into the wild. No Whitecloak could fail to be alarmed at that. Amagumo had taken care of this, to a degree. Once they broke away from the tents the Assassins and the Apprentices threw off the white cloaks, and arrows began to fall along the edge of the camp, arrows from a dozen or so bows. It was a desperate move, and drew the Whitecloaks’ attention as they had all known it would, but it gave Dias and Amagumo time to get the prisoners to the horses. After that, they were off, galloping into the night with Amagumo’s men.

 

“We have to take them to Tetsuo,†Amagumo called across to his former master from atop his steed.

 

Dias nodded.

 

Riyk, barely able to sit the saddle of the running mount, straightened up. “Where are we going?†he asked.

 

“Somewhere safe.†Dias told him.

 

“Where?â€

 

Dias smiled, almost laughed, when he realised how funny it would sound. “The Blight.â€

 

 

 

Dias

Shar Mahdi

Master of Combat

 

OOC: ok Riyk, you handle the next part since you're the one who knows Tetsuo's character (what he looks like, etc). Just have us meet him somewhere over the next day.

[706Somtaaw]

Riyk hung from the simple building which had acted as his cell for however long the Whitelcoak's held him. He'd lost his sense of time and was growing closer to death every day and welcomed it.

 

Grunting as the Whitecloak stepped behind him and pulled his head back by his hair, he blinked and focused a stare on the Questioner approaching him, silently daring him to do his worst. With any luck the Questioner would try to hard and kill him before he revealed anything useful to them.

 

He sucked air in hard as he saw the red hot poker in the Questioners hand as he approached him. Straining against his chains, he fought to break free before the poker could touch him, and began to scream as the poker was pushed into his left eye. The pain was unimaginably intense, and he writhed trying to get away from the pain, unable to think at all.

 

The poker was drawn away, and his scream faded away, and he gulped air like he once did to wine trying to get drunk. He pulled against the chains and the hand in his hair to touch his eye, to do anything to stop the pain from his shattered eye.

 

He was barely aware as the wooden door in front of him suddenly shattered and a figure stepped through the gaping hole, and another sound from where he was slowly remembering a chimney was.

 

As the pain faded away, he saw bodies slumping to the ground. It only took what seemed seconds for the Questioners to die, and then he was freed immediately falling to the ground wanting to empty his stomach.

 

He focused on Dias, and told him the only thing he'd revealed to the Questioners that he remembered, before slowly touching his ruined eye and turning away to vomit, scrubbing the blood from his mouth.

 

“Riyk, there’s no time. We have to get out of here. Can you walk?†Dias asked, pulling him to his feet.

 

“I can try.†Riyk told him, with a small smile as he pushed the pain away. It took effort, but thinking of escape as his mission helped to ignore the pain for now.

 

Leaving the building and into the fresh night air helped clear his head, and he stopped stumbling as he regained control of his body and the pain receded. He was sore from the torture, and his muscles and bones ached but the light pain from those helped ignore the much greater pain of his ruined eye.

 

Riyk followed the other men, trying to keep to the shadows and as close to them as he could. He felt horribly out of shape, and a bumbling fool compared against what had to be two full Assassins as they glided almost flowed around obstacles that nearly tripped him.

 

Stopping next to a horse, he watched Dias and his companion start mounting up, and heaved himself into the saddle of the horse he was leaning against, slumped in the saddle like a sack of potatoes, clutching his mounts neck with both hands to keep from falling off.

 

“Where are we going?†he asked after the last shouts of the Whitecloaks faded.

 

“Somewhere safe.†he was told, and asked again. “Where?â€

 

“The Blight.†was his answer, and made him pale. The Blight was no place for him to be in this condition, maybe not even before he was captured by the Whitecloaks.

 

* * *

 

Tetsuo prowled the night, holding the Void. He'd come south from the Blight to check on some of his spies, and properly guide them into never even thinking of lying to him.

 

Many of them reported an attack on some Whitecloak camp, and something of prisoners being liberated which he scoffed at in the begining. After his fifth spy reported nearly the same thing, he headed south to look for himself. With saidin by his side and the Great Lord to shelter him from the Taint he had no fear of lightfools who disdained the Source.

 

Pulling to a halt, he heard a whisper of a noise and seized saidin and wheeled around. He caught a hint of a blade clearing a sheath and turned around pushing his Fade cloak hood back to reveal his face.

 

"who's there? he challenged, readying several nasty weaves all inverted. He'd heard about those Asha'men, and didn't want to reveal that he knew how to channel properly. If this was an Asha'man around, the fool would think he could only touch the Source.

 

"Speak if your there, I am Tetsuo a soldier of the Shienaran Infantry," he called out hoping it wasn't someone who knew him.

 

A few figures moved out from the woods and he frowned before a hood was tossed back to reveal a familiar face. Releasing saidin he shook his head, "next time maybe you can announce yourself instead of just appearing Amagumo. I could have killed you, and your companions there," he said nodding towards the others.

 

"What brings you around these parts, I thought you were still somewhere in the Blight?"

[Elilliane]

~’*’~ She abandoned a scene that was both wild and unsightly, fleeing a site where flames ruled. Her feet pounded against solid ground, arms raised to shield her head against extended branches, eyes eying to ground for any raised roots that could bring her crashing down. She ought to be crossing familiar territory, spots where Dias had habitually brought them out for a certain aspect of their training but not now. With panic shrouding her mind, Alaina discovered it near impossible to be able to mask her passage through the dark woodland with half the deadly stealth taught to her. Perchance it would have made marked difference if she had not thought to glance at her master, back in the farmhouse, thus allowing all her fears to surface. He was suppose to be their shield, always one step ahead of all foes yet this time, the tables had been turned on them. The hunters were the preys, with no relief in evident sight.

 

~’*’~ Triumphant shouts drifted in the smoke laden air, sounding jarring to her ears. The ground trembled with the running & stomping of an overwhelming swarm of Whitecloaks, with the familiar drumming of horse hoofs approaching with alarming swiftness. Guided by moonlight and fire, Alaina found herself bending to crouch behind a large shrub as a pair of running Whitecloaks dashed past her, heart pounding fiercely as she willed herself to take in short gulps of fresh air. Fear made the adrenaline race and she found herself glancing down at the blade in one hand, stunned to see thin lines of sweat decorating the handle, the weapon and limb shaking uncontrollably in the dark. The desire to quench her lust for blood battled with that of judicious reasoning, as she debated her next move. Unless she had lost her bearings, the main congregation of foes came roughly from the right, where a fiery blaze of daunting height was still noticeable amidst all the branches & foliage.

 

~’*’~ A large clump of sere leaves on the floor rustled as she moved, accompanied by that of a whistling that flew by her ear. She froze in spot, flushed cheeks feeling the increasing heat stirring in the air, and impending danger. Vulnerability. The startling realisation snapped Alaina out of her trance, body instinctively resuming bending position when she caught the sight of a white cloak by her side. Another bolt hummed past her; again another narrow miss. Frustrated, she grinded her teeth to prevent another sound from escaping as she shifted position in the shadows, manipulating the dark as she had learned to do during training. Nerves at an edge, Alaina observed the Child approach with a smug complexion, sword out of scabbard as though meaning to finish the job. Time for vengeance.

 

~’*’~ She grasped the opportunity when a compatriot of the man rushed up, causing momentary distraction. A calculated throw of dagger in his direction had him choking on his own blood seconds later, followed by a strangled cry she could barely make out. No matter; swift hands immediately reached for another longer blade to thrust into the middle half of her other startled opponent but tense as she was, could not manage to be swift enough to avoid a minor slash by the side. The pain was sternly ignored as her legs came from under to throw the man onto the floor. He came down easily enough, evidently not anticipating her strength. “Dallying is death,†she hissed into his ears, dark eyes gleaming maliciously before slinking back into the shadows to await the next group of opponents. Nowhere to run, but at least she would go down fighting for the dark. Her hands still ached from having trying to twist the neck of her latest opponent, him having possessed a far thicker neck than she had anticipated. She smiled ruefully, wondering exactly how many Children were making their rampage through the forest to cut off all escape routes. There was always a chance at freedom but with the seconds ticking by… too late.

 

~’*’~ They began to surround her, from all sides, materialising out of the sinister darkness that was no longer a friend. Fear had drained her of much strength and despite accuracy still being somewhat on her side, hope of freedom had long disappeared. The Children attacked as one and a strangled scream was ripped from her throat. Pain exploded in her head as swords arched above her, swung beneath her and left their bloody marks on her. Alaina could feel a warm wetness soaking her black clothes coupled with growing fatigue, knowing that she was losing too much blood in too little time. Where was help? Where was death? Distantly did she observe the burning inferno coming towards her and wondered as to whether she would be burned to death instead. Mayhem. Pain. Swords. She gladly welcomed darkness…

 

’*’ It began as a gradual sensation that her mind instantly dismissed to be inconsequential. A murmuring of voices, blood pounding like a gong; a sense of being dragged & roughly handled then… blissful oblivion. She was woken up several times but lost consciousness each time. Perhaps it was having surpassed her physical limitations and her mind, seeking refuge from whatever horrors that prowled the waking world, kept her unawares for some time. Perhaps. Whatever it might be, enemies at least are unlikely to be considerate towards your plight.

 

‘*’ What would you do if you woke to the smell of burning flesh? What if your first sight was that of a large pool of dried blood? Then you see those knives dangling inches from you, sharp edges glistening with some strange substance. Nauseous, isn’t it? But wait; there is more - the people themselves. They drift around you in some hypnotic dance, interspaced with heavy stampings of feet. Clothed in white, you could almost be forgiven to believe these strangers to be your saviours from the demons of fire & sword. Indeed, it isn’t fair that anyone should be treated as anything less than a human. But what is fairness when you have already sold your soul to darkness? The Dark Lord is harsher & crueller than these petty... beings combined, and more. Or so the rumours go. I’ve never had the opportunity to confront Him personally. No, life has yet to be so... kind.

 

‘*’ The Children made it clear from the start which instrument of pain they favoured, alternating between her and Riyk. They were pernicious. She was belligerent. The results of such exchanges were obvious and almost identical. They had already narrowed down her allegiance, yet they sought elusive information only she could offer, it would seem. Indeed, they didn’t even grant her time to counter the questions. No, giving pain was a more satisfying chore. She understood their feelings and would’ve agreed with it, if she wasn’t the person they were working on. Now there was a painful thought. No, wait. How was it even possible that she was still thinking? Pain. Hot pokers. She would bear many scars from this ordeal. What would others think? Those were details to be thought out later. No, wait. She had to survive first. And if she didn’t, she would know soon enough. Unless they were experts at prolonging lives; didn’t they often do these things? Questioners - that was what they were called. Blood and bloody ashes, where was Dias?!

 

‘*’ Sleep was a long way off when bloodcurdling screams served as sweet lullabies. Despite the harsh regime Dias had put her through before Alaina had not found sufficient courage to look when they’d lifted the glowing pokers up, not dared to know what was to be branded upon her skin. Guilt & regret almost immediately suffused her when it began. Out of pure instinct, she struggled against her tight chains and the violent clanging of metal was magnified a thousand folds in her mind. A brilliant flash of light momentarily blinded her. There were more murmuring of voices starting and the buzzing sound was starting to hurt; she was losing consciousness but they refused to allow her to slip into that beckoning darkness. How many times had she been cuffed? How many threats had they uttered? How many times had they cauterized her wounds & salted others? She was already broken from the surprise attack and subsequent defeat. What more to say…

 

‘*’ Thirst burned her throat. They had placed a glass of clear water tantalizingly close, but unbearably too far due to her chains. It was enough to cry from frustration but she refrained, not just to preserve some petty dignity. No. They sought to break her down even more. It was all meant to achieve some psychological effect; she had to bear that in mind at all cause. “Who is your master? What is his name?†His tone had risen in anger and that translated into his flushed features; a darkly handsome young man surely not out of his twenties, young fool. He had been considerably flustered when ordered to break her; she had regained enough sense to make note of that particular scene. A simple memory that helped strengthen her fortitude, helping her clamp her mouth shut against all the threats, insults and… things. He had begun tentatively and her eyes had mocked his every move. But he was creative and innovative; she had to give him that much. A female looking down upon him was apparently a humiliating matter, despite the surroundings.

 

‘*’ He took his sweet time. The nails went first; she had not known it possible to take so long to pull one nail. His air of expertise was something that earned her grudging admiration while causing bile to rise to her throat. Every open wound was salted, slowly, delicately, like a chef would towards his masterpieces. It was unnerving. Large, cumbersome weapons did not strike fear into her the way smaller items and spices did. After every incision he made, the man would leave her; she had lost count of the number of times he had left her already. Occasionally, he would return with companions. And those people in turn would stay and have a go at the captives with malice written into the lines of their smooth complexion. An endless cycle; pain renewed and subdued, the room fading into a hazy red, parched skin jumping when chilling water was dumped unto her. Utter madness.

 

“Tell us your name.â€

“Alaina.â€

“And your master?â€

“I… I’ve forgotten.â€

“Bastard! Whore!â€

 

Alaina Caoimhe

Assassin Apprentice