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Dirk Winter
Shield Master
Somewhere between Risland and the Free Forest
"White Rabbit and the Eagles staying at the Hotel California"

Dirk had found a cool spring for the rest to gather around and refresh themselves in.
In fact he had refreshed himself in such a way that would not befit a Soldier.
But now as he stood with his eyes quickly scanning the forest he had realized that majority of his Patrol had been on auto-pilot.
No matter where he looked the forest looked the same.

So he chose a direction and began to walk.
He felt as though he had walked for ten minutes where he stopped and did a visual check of his surroundings, before continuing for another ten.
The young man steeled himself for a long journey. What he didn't plan was to end up back at the same creek he had just been.
The mark's on the dirt indicating where he had dropped his shield and had leaned in to take a drink of water.
His heart dropped, but he immediately scooped it back up, steeled himself for a long journey to come and started forward again, in a different direction.
About 40 minutes later Dirk was at the Creek frantically looking about for a direction that wouldn't lead back to his current position
.
He was lost. What's more? He was lost in a Haunted forest!
Dirk could hear voices.
Voices everywhere!
And then he started to see things...
There was a White Knight, he was speaking a language had never heard and had heard at the same time.
He was talking backwards.
A memory of a cruel trick his brothers had once played on him when he had been younger.
Dirk clapped his hands to his ears, forgetting his Kite shield was still strapped to his left arm and successfully banging the side of his head with it.
Falling to the floor, concussed, he blinked several times as he tried to steady himself and stand at the same time. The voices were gone and so was the White Knight. His hand touched what felt like a rock but when he looked down he was actually leaning on a woman's head. One heavily covered up in make-up with a Red crown on top of it.
A door mouse walked...on two legs...WALKED to the head and began to put cheese into its lifeless mouth.
It then looked up at Dirk and said, "Feed your Head."
The young man's heart jumped into his throat and he struggled to let out a scream as he scrambled away and got back on his feet.
Then the voices were back, most of which he couldn't make out except the last sentence.

"But you can never leave!"

Then there was a screeching noise in different pitches. It sounded like it could be music, but no one would ever make music with a sound that sounded like farmers dragging pitchforks across stone.
...
All hallucinations of his mind of course.
Nothing was there, there was no voices.
No White Knights talking backwards, or headless Red Queen's, or talking Door Mice.
Don Henley and the rest of the Eagles weren't playing "Hotel California" with the sick Guitar Solo at the end that Dirk Winter will not understand for another few thousand years past his Death...

Suddenly, the youngest Winter Brother felt something tearing at his back as well as the half-hearted human roar.
It didn't occur to him that someone was attacking him until she bit his neck.
He screamed at a pitch that made Valkyries respect the young man, and he jumped so high, from being frightened that any bird in the area all asked at one audible time, "What the ******** was that?"
Somehow tossing her off he slammed his back against the tree and slammed his shield into the ground between her and him, his right hand scrambling to take its sword out of its sheath with no luck.
The shield was in the way.
"Wh- Wh - wh- Who are you!?"
Dirk finally questioned as he prepared to defend himself with just his shield.

First Sword to the Lady Nisvania Vorsaad
xxxxDash Ryder
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xxxx❛❛ Blood....more blood....there's never....enough....BLOOD!!!❜❜

»| Covenant Camp of Lady Thalia Vorsaad
»| Rick...or his corpse; Thalia, Ascher, and company
»| This hurts...
»| OOC:


As Dash rode the dark horse away from the Inn, a faint commotion caught his ear, but he ignored it. There were plenty of guards there to protect Nisvania, and her commotion was probably either over the door likely being jammed shut, or the innkeeper finding a dead body in the hallway. Either way, nothing even slightly would have caused Dash to stop his ride. Right now, he needed to be away from Nisvania. What was this feeling in his chest, and why did his chest hurt like it did? It was not really a physical pain, but it felt almost physical somehow. Was this what rejection and betrayal felt like?

Dash had never once understood the feelings that had begun to rise from his time around Nisvania. Even now they confused him beyond what he could really understand. But for now, anger ran through his veins, and that was something Dash could understand well. It fueled his desires and drove his blood lust to one of its highest points ever. So Nisvania wanted this Rick man dead? Dash was no longer sure he even cared, but the chance to bring pain and shed blood was not something he would pass up.

It would be a long hard ride to reach the Covenant forces, but Dash did not care. His blood lust did not falter in the slightest through the whole trip. It took a few hours, but once Dash reached the edge of the clearing nearest where the Covenant camp had been, a sight the man did not expect. Barbarian corpses littered the area along with some much larger monstrosity. And then there was the odd misty blackness further to the right with a few Covenant forces around it, and even fewer emerging from the darkness. Far off to the left dust was kicked up as someone traveled away quickly.

Still, nothing Dash saw really pointed him in the direction he wanted to go. Lifting his arm so that his falcon Faile could land, Dash smiled, running a finger down the back of the bird's head. "It's time again Faile. Blood in our future. Such sweet blood. The man who grabbed Nisvania earlier. The one who left the bruises. Find him. Find him and call me." Smiling as Dash lifted his arm into the air, the falcon took off high and began circling above. Well trained and obedient to a fault, Faile had helped Dash find his prey many times, occasionally taking down the prey herself. What an amazing creature.

It only took a few moments for Faile to cry out into the sky, drawing Dash's attention, and soon his advance. Riding the fairly fatigued horse in the direction the falcon flew, Dash stared through the woods for any sign of people. It was the smell of horses that caught his attention first. Stopping a fair distance off, Dash dismounted from the horse silently and began his approach on foot. It did not take long to recognize three figures standing among at least five or six pristine horses. One of those figures hand a right wrist bound and splinted, a sling around his neck keeping the wrist from being bumped into anything.

A smile spread across Dash's lips as his eyes locked onto the man. The other two stood at the edge of the camp, watching the battle, or what they could see of it from where they were. It was an easy task now. Making his way around the left side of the small group of horses, Dash made sure to keep himself concealed among the trees, his eyes watching for any movement...well, anywhere near. Faile would screech from above if someone approached from any further than twenty meters or so. That was plenty of room for Dash to react to any threat. He was good at what he did, and right now the butcher was hungry.

As Dash finally came up behind the figure that was Rick, he crept up slowly, producing one of his hollow throwing daggers filled with a thick, greenish-clear liquid. The liquid would eventually come to be known as tetrodotoxin, a toxin from the sea born puffer fish. It was, by all accounts, Dash's toxin of choice. The unique fact about this toxin was that it would shut down the somatic nervous system, rendering any victim unable to move. However, they would still be able to feel everything as if they were not impeded in any way.

With a wicked smile still across his lips, Dash held a piece of thick wool in his left hand as he stood right behind Rick. In a swift movement, Dash held the cloth over Rick's nose and mouth while driving the dagger into the right side of the man's right thigh, injecting the tetrodotoxin as he pulled the man to the ground quickly but quietly. The man made only a muffled grunt of surprise before falling quiet. Pulling out a leather band, Dash fastened the piece of wool into the man's mouth, keeping him silent as the man was moved. The dagger Dash had used was pulled out, cleaned off, and placed in a separate pocket to be refilled with the toxin later on when the chance presented itself. Lifting the immobilized Covenant guard to his shoulders, Dash walked straight away from the small camp before sweeping back left to his horse.

Throwing Rick's body across the front of the saddle, Dash mounted and turned the horse around and rode back the way he came and turned left, moving closer to the original Covenant camp he had seen. He wanted to be close enough for the man's cries of pain to be heard, yet far enough away where he could get away before being captured. It was about a ten minute ride to a small rock cliff that would provide ample protection from unwanted eyes. Dismounting once again, Dash grabbed the man by the belt he wore and simply pulled him off of the horse, allowing the man to fall straight down to the ground. Dash could hear the grunt of pain as the man landed on the already broken wrist, and Dash himself laughed.

Using his foot to roll the man over on the hard rock floor under the cliff, Dash pulled a wrapped bundle from the saddle of his horse, untying it and unrolling it to reveal all manner of scalpels, needles, and small pliers. It was a torture set that would make the most experienced dungeon master proud. As Dash bent down over the man. he grabbed a scalpel and quickly slid it under the leather strap that held the wool inside of the man's mouth, jerking upward, cutting the strap and leaving a slash from the man's cheek to his nose. Pulling the wool out of the man's mouth, Dash smiled more as the man pleaded to be forgive. Promises to follow him and Nisvania. To do whatever he wanted. "Oh? Well. You see. This is what I want. I've had a bad day, and cutting you apart....making you scream in agony...that will make my day so much better, Ricky."

Sliding the scalpel across the man's face, Dash smiled as he suddenly jammed it through the man's cheek, ripping the flesh from the back of the jaw to the corner of the lips, opening the entire right side of the man's mouth before doing the same to the left. Laughing as the man screamed in pain, Dash moved over to his tools and pulled a pair of pliers, gripping the man's fingernails one by one and slowly peeling them back and ripping them off. It was then that a new idea crossed Dash's mind. He had the antidote to the tetrodotoxin. What if the man thought he could possibly survive and leave? The though of destroying the man mentally drove Dash wild with anticipation and the man was soon pulling out a needle, filling it with a reddish liquid, and driving it into the man's neck and pushing the plunger down. "Stand and fight, you pathetic waste of skin and blood."

Tossing the man's sword down near him as Rick began to regain the ability to move, Dash smiled. Flesh hung down from both of the man's cheeks, showing teeth and gums inside of the man's mouth and dripping blood and drool. As Rick grabbed his sword it was obvious that his hand still hurt greatly from the nails being removed. He stood no chance, and so Dash did not really regard the man as much of a threat. Drawing his own sword, Dash stood ready. Rick charged forward, swinging wild with anger and pain, trying in vain to hit Dash with the sharp metal blade. Laughing, Dash shoved blow after blow aside. Perhaps it was the joy of causing pain and desperation, or perhaps it was the residual effects of the argument with Nisvania, but Dash got distracted, and it cost him.

For some reason his block was not nearly as effective as needed at deflecting a stab, and suddenly Dash found Rick's sword stuck into his side, piercing easily two inches into Dash's own stomach. His eyes widened as he looked up at Rick, who seemed pleased. In a flash, Dash's sword moved and severed the guard's head from the rest of his body. As the man fell, Dash removed the blade from his side and shoved some padding over the wound, applying pressure to the now red soaked padding. Quickly recovering his tools, Dash remounted his horse and rode hard towards Thalia Vorsaad's Covenant camp.

Crossing the perimeter of the camp, Dash saw the woman on the ground with the Archavist from earlier on her lap, and another woman kneeling near by. Stopping his horse near them, Dash slumped in his saddle, blood staining a good portion of his left side from mid abdomen down. His eyes were glazing over and his face pale as he looked down at Thalia. He tried to speak, only managing a whisper. "Help.....please...." Losing the strength to keep himself upright in the saddle, Dash slowly slide to his left and fell out of his saddle. He never felt the fall as all went dark and numb mid fall. Now one question remained.

Would Thalia Vorsaad help the First Sword of her sister, or let the man die?

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