BROUGHT TO BAY
For as long as she could remember, she had been hunted. Through the
streets, in the
buildings, under the bridges, within the sewers. She couldn't remember
what it was like to
be safe for very long, what it was like to live in peace. Memories of
Middlegate, of the
temple there, were long since past. A Nightingale's life was supposed to
be full of danger,
but not like this.
Nilafe ducked as she heard the telltale twang of a crossbow, and a bolt
struck the wall just above where her head had been. Lousy shot, this one.
Couldn't hit her,
and probably couldn't hit much of anything. That didn't mean that his
three friends
couldn't, however.
This one got had cocky apparently, and rushed into the alley after her,
perhaps thinking
that he'd hit something. Four feet in he discovered his mistake as
Wealtheow lashed out
from behind the barrel where she'd been hiding and pierced his side with
her rapier, just
between the break separating the front and back plates of his leather
armor. The assailant
cursed and spit out something dark, probably blood, as he dropped his
crossbow and reached
for the sword at his side, turning towards her. He didn't notice Tsurlen
rise up behind him,
swords drawn. There was the whistle of a blade and Tsurlen's mithril blade
relieved him of
the troublesome burden of his head. It hit the ground with a sickening
thud, just a second
before the body.
Nilafe heard Tsurlen curse and dive to the ground as three arrows impacted
with the wooden
wall behind him almost simultaneously. The dark man struggled to his feet
and began
scrambling for the far end of the alley. Nilafe didn't need a second cue
and turned and
rushed on ahead as Wealtheow brought up the rear.
They burst out into the darkened street, led by the Nightingale. Tsurlen
was right behind
her. "Down!" he yelled, and shoved her to the cobblestones as another
arrow whistle by. She
thought it might have grazed him, and he seemed enraged by this newest
attack, rushing
towards their attacker heedlessly. This man had on some sort of chainmail,
and was in the
process of reloading his crossbow. He seemed to change his mind as he saw
the dark half-drow
charge towards him, however, and he tossed the weapon aside, drawing forth
instead a curved
blade of some sort.
Tsurlen was on him in an instant, raining overhead blows upon the man with
his twin
dwarven-forged mithril blades. After two blows, he'd been beaten back. The
third took off
three quarters of the blade. A fourth took the man's right hand, and the
fifth took the rest
of the arm with it as he screamed in pain. Tsurlen's weapons could not
seem to do much more
than dent the chainmail however, so he eschewed the frontal assault and
simply stabbed the
attacker in the face. There was a gout of blood and brain matter as skull
fragments
scattered this way and that, and the now-mostly headless body dropped to
the ground,
lifeless and bleeding.
Meanwhile, Nilafe was having her own troubles. As soon as Tsurlen had
taken off, she had
heard the footsteps of pursuers in the alley behind her. Still on the
ground from Tsurlen's
shove, she was forced to roll out of the way as an arrow struck the
flagstones where she had
lain only a moment before. The first of the attackers burst from the
alley, and he was
hamstrung by the crouching Wealtheow who had thought to press against the
wall as soon as
she had come out of the darkness of the alley. The surprised man fell
forward as his leg
gave out from under him, and a quick stab of the bard's rapier resolved
any further issues.
Her blade pierced the side of his neck and came out the other, strangling
the cry in his
throat. There was a slight gurgle mixed with the sound of his body
impacting on the stone,
and his body twitched as his lifeblood rushed out onto the muddy
street.
That left two more, at least.
The pair of them came out together, weapons drawn, facing the armed women.
They split up,
one heading for each. Nilafe parried a quick initial attack and stabbed
with her blade, only
to find that this man's armor was too strong for her weapon. Enchanted,
perhaps? Wealtheow
caught a blow in her main-gauche, twisting the blade and locking it. She
kicked the man in
the knee and he barely managed to stay standing, but he avoided her
rapier, mostly, as it
caught him in the shoulder, not penetrating deeply.
Nilafe brought out another sword in her left hand--the very sword they
sought, she thought
grimly. With a quick but awkward swipe, she brought the blade across her
body and through
the man's body. The properties of this weapon were far from normal,
however, and it did
not do the expected thing of cutting him in half, as a conventional blade
would do. Rather,
this sword, the Soulblade, could only harm magical creatures and objects.
It would pass
harmlessly through normal and mortal materials, including living flesh.
But it cut through
the man's armor like butter. How odd it was, that the blade passed through
him as if it were
but smoke, but rent the chainmail asunder. The bottom half of the man's
chainmail fell from
his chest down around his legs, and he lost his balance. As he fell to the
ground, Nilafe
brought her other blade across his now-unprotected chest and disemboweled
him, spewing
entrails all over the dampened flagstones.
Giving no further thought to the dying man, she moved to aid the bard, who
had lost her
main-gauche's grip on her attacker's blade, but had yet to suffer any
injuries. As the
Nightingale came at him from another angle, he turned, and the bard took
advantage of the
distraction and stabbed him in the eye. He dropped like a stone.
"Quickly, before more of them come." Nilafe gestured and Wealtheow,
followed by the
reappeared Tsurlen, rushed into the alley across the way. They dashed
between two dimly
lit streets and up to the door of a building with a parchment tacked to
the door. As Nilafe
reached to open the door, Tsurlen grabbed her shoulder and pulled her
back. With his free
hand, he pointed at the notice. "Plague," he said. The other two grimaced
and moved on down
the street. Many such notices were tacked to the doors on this street, and
Tsurlen
unconciously moved a hand to cover his mouth. Plague frightened him,
frightened him like
almost nothing else.
The trio rounded another corner and found themselves not a hundred feet
from another group
of the Knave's men. Cries rang out and crossbows twanged as all three of
the friends
tumbled back behind the cover of the building.
"Alley!" exclaimed Wealtheow as she pointed towards its dark recesses, its
relative safety.
Too much time had been spent in alleys, decided Nilafe, even as she dashed
for its murky
depths. They got in none too soon as they heard shouts behind them and
another crossbow
shot. This alley ended in a wooden door and Tsurlen reached it first. It
was open with a
stiff kick and he was inside, followed by the two women.
Tsurlen whirled about and slammed
the door shut as soon as they were safe, and grabbed stray plank of wood
to replace the
cross-beam he had destroyed upon his entry. The shouts outside grew
louder, and then there
was a loud thump as something hit the door. Tsurlen put his back to it to
hold it. There
was another thump, and then a thwack as an axeblade came part-way through
the door, an inch
from Tsurlen's ear. He leapt forward from the door, barely avoiding
another blow as a
similar axeblade split the wood where his back had been. The half-elf got
to his knees and
looked up at the women. "Don't just stand there, do something, dammit!"