Betrayal of Trust: RPG

[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

Haleg watched dispassionately as the final blow was struck. He could feel no sense of satisfaction as a dying man exacted his desperate revenge, and he had seen the horror in the girl, Catrina's eyes as her lover's blood and entrails spilled onto the cobbles. There was no honour here, and scant justice; there was only death. He knew that Halasan was dying, and he could see how his only daughter now looked on him with horror: a gaunt and wild-eyed killer, still clutching a sword clotted with gore. They had come seeking vengeance, and they had carried destruction in their wake.

For a moment, as Halasan clutched Catrina hungrily to his breast, the axeman's mind filled with visions of a dark night long ago, the blood black on the ground and on the edge of Durithil; blood thick on his hands, and pooling around the broken, whimpering thing at his feet. The heroic couplets had no comfort in them when this mood was on him; when he was drowning in long-shed blood and tears long dried. He prepared to turn away: the killing was over, and he was no longer needed here.

Suddenly the shaft of a long arrow sprouted from Halasan's body. In a frozen moment he saw bright blood from a pierced lung speckling the goose-feathers with red, and then he was turning, axe in hand, as a young woman's voice called down the storm. Once again armed men were about him, and another waited eagerly to drain that same bitter cup whose dregs still frothed on Halasan's lips.

Another shaft flew before the first clash of steel, but his movements had been swift and it missed its mark, driving into his leg and filling his mind with pain-driven rage. The first opponent charged him and he barely looked at the man's face as he parried and lashed Durithil's haft across it. He felt bone give way beneath his blow as he swung with its momentum, ducking his head to evade the weapons that he knew were sweeping towards him as he moved. A blade bit into his turning shoulder, its force diminished by his motion, and scored a deep cut across it to join the pale marks of countless others. Haleg spun, his eyes lighting on another man, this one already in the process of lunging. As many men did when faced with a man of Haleg's bulk, he was underestimating the speed at which his opponent could move, and a look of amazement swept across his face as the axeman stepped aside, sweeping his blade across to strike his enemy's unguarded back. The surprised expression froze, and he fell; and Haleg wrenched his blade free in a spray of crimson. Even as the mercenary died, he was turning away to parry another lunge.

Jorgen knew when he first saw the big man that he could beat him. Here was a savage, who would rely on strength to batter down his foes, and he, Jorgen, was a superior mind entirely. He knew that he could outwit this great lumbering ox, could stall and poleaxe him as easily as thinking, and he launched into his favourite attack, in which he feinted twice low and then struck high at the neck. It had never failed, and he had chosen his light sword for just such a delicate manoevre. Even as Haleg moved to block his second feint he knew without doubt that he had the man at his mercy. The fool was parrying the feint, and would be unready for the final, killing blow, which would slice his throat like butter. He allowed a brief smile to play on his lips as he checked his blade and launched into his last lethal swing.

The blow did not connect. Haleg had seen the trick played before, although this time the sheer speed of his attacker almost defeated him. He pretended to parry the second feint, knowing that he was expected to see the first, but he checked early, moving to parry the genuine attack with vicious force. The jarring impact nearly spun Jorgen's sword from his hands, and he took a step backwards. Haleg swung round to face one of his companions, and so the new man lunged point-first at the big man's back; but Haleg was expecting this and merely stepped aside. Jorgen and his opponent were briefly off-balance as they strove to avoid stabbing one another, giving Haleg time to lunge his own weapon into the face of another man with a knife before he swung back. The younger man was already on the offensive again, but his attack was high and Haleg had learned from his father that an enemy who cannot stand is an enemy who cannot fight. He ducked the slashing cut with moments to spare, feeling the draught of it above his head as his axe splintered its way into the younger man's leg. It shattered below the knee and he fell, a broken sob escaping as he did so. Forgotten, his sword followed him to the ground.

Haleg was now surrounded on all sides. A lunge sliced his forearm as his parry just failed to deflect it. A knife stuck in his side, mainly stopped by the hard leather that he wore, but still driving into muscles already stretched to the limit by the strain of combat. The knife-man died with his head half-severed, and now there were four opponents, one of them burning with rage for his broken face.

Joal moved warily towards Haleg. He knew better than to approach an enemy without a care, and he was gauging the older man's movements. Haleg was fast, but he was no longer exceptionally so, and much of his speed was born of skill. Also the axeman seemed driven by rage. Until the first arrow had struck him he had seemed almost drunk, apparently aware of nothing, and now he fought with astonishing brutality. Joal waited until the storm of Haleg's wrath was focused on one of his companions before he struck, and his blow was true. This time the axeman's luck had run out, for he could never parry this blow in time. At that moment, though, Haleg's opponent leapt at him, throwing both of them to the ground, and Joal's blow missed its mark, throwing him off balance and momentarily out of the fray. Behind him Haleg rolled desperately to avoid three weapons and to throw off his assailant, driving his forehead into the other man's face to bespatter both of them with blood. Leaping to his feet, he roared his defiance at Jair, who was approaching with a knife in either hand, and charged directly at him, his axe held head-first ahead of him aimed at his enemy's chest. He felt now the old exultation as he drove the man back into a wall and felt ribs crack and give way as though beneath a hammer. He was shouting obscenities into the other man's face, drinking the fear in his eyes like wine, and when he turned away Jair simply fell to his knees and made no effort to strike; his weapons falling from his nerveless hands.

Joal knew now that he faced a man in the throes of a berzerk battle-madness. Nothing that he could do would bring fear or pain to their mark, and only death would now prevent him from slaughtering them all. Whisper's voice rang in his ears, shrill, harsh and urgent with the lust for the man's blood, but she demanded that which mere money could not purchase. As Haleg threw another man to the ground, he lunged in again, whirling his blade in a dazzling series of arcs to confuse his man. Each was parried, the last few clumsily, and he opened a vicious cut on Haleg's forearm that began immediately to seep blood. The return attack was stunning: the axe seemed to come from every direction at once, and for a moment he fought for his very life for the first time in years. As he backed away from the last blow, parrying desperately, he saw his remaining fellows break and run, and he knew that he had lost. Nothing could be gained by pursuing this fight, and he screamed at Whisper to follow him as he ran after them. She notched and fired one arrow before Haleg saw her, and lunged after her with blind rage in his eyes. He was past the point of seeing his enemies' faces, and he was deaf to the screams of flesh. For the first time in the chase she realised what it was to face such a man, and her hand trembled slightly as she drew back on the bowstring, cursing as she released the shaft too soon. It drove into Haleg's side, but its force was diminished and it damaged only muscle. She was running after her men even as the arrow flew, and never had the satisfaction of seeing Haleg fall.

As the red mist cleared from his eyes, Haleg was whelmed in a flood of pain. Every inch of him felt battered and smashed; scores of slashes and gouges oozed blood, staining clothing and exposed skin red. The arrows pulled at his tortured flesh, a stab wound in one shoulder screamed agony and every muscle burned. His breath was coming in harsh pants and it seared his throat like fire. He fell to his knees, dropping his axe, only gradually becoming aware of the bodies lying on the ground and the frail girl who stood alone in the blood-drenched street, eyes wide and mad with fear. The fight had lasted for a few minutes, and now the old soldier sank under a weariness that dragged at him like weights. He rolled from his knees to rest his back against the wall of a building and pulled Durithil onto his lap. He was too tired even to wipe the blood and sweat from his eyes, and his vision clouded with bloody tears. Once more he had won, and once more victory was dust and ash in his mouth. There was no meaning here, no glory or fame: he had won a squalid brawl, and the prize was life itself.

He knew that he should speak to the girl, should say something to calm her tattered nerves, perhaps to reconcile her to the battered creature that had been her father; but the words would not come. Unconsciousness was a welcome relief from that lonely figure, whose shattered isolation was a condemnation of his whole life. Defeated, Haleg slept.

[ October 13, 2003: Message edited by: The Squatter of Amon Rûdh ]