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 Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2008 6:47 pm
As suddenly as it came, the humanity in Letalus' expression vanished, replaced by the usual stony mask. "I said nothing of escaping," he said, reaching up to adjust the cloak around his shoulders. "We'll go to the temple, but you'll stay outside while I return the sword." He averted his eyes from Merro, unwilling to see the bright smile on her face die with his next words.
"And then I'll fulfill my duty and bring you back to your father."
It didn't set right with him, of course. Despite her bad attitude and apparent inability to stay out of trouble, he didn't feel she deserved the caged life she was born into anymore than he did. Something about her resonated within him, but what could he do? His master had given him an order and he was compelled to obey. But if there was something at that temple that could free him...
He longed to tell her about his situation, to reveal all that he was, but the risk was too great and he wasn't entirely sure she wouldn't be the next in line to use him. After all, she was his daughter.
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Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2008 7:44 pm
The smile died without so much as a whimper of protest, Merro's face having been such an unaccustomed place for it that it had not had any chance to put down roots of permanence. The chance of being within a few steps of the temple, however, allowed for some hope that she might yet gain her goal. It was, at least, better than being told that she would be returned to her father and then locked into her room while Letalus returned the sword himself. It was miles better yet than being told that she and the sword would be handed over in utter servitude to her father's greed. Letalus did not seem to be entirely bad through and through like some of the Toad's toadies.
She nodded slowly as all this flitted through her head, then said quietly,
"Very well." They continued to walk towards the outskirts while Merro pondered over her situation, and then the sight of the mysterious sword brought something back to mind.
"Letalus? Do you know many old languages?"
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Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2008 7:52 pm
When they reached the outskirts of the town, Letalus nearly sighed with relief. He had noticed several townspeople staring at them as they walked down the road. Disheveled and dirty as she was, Merro was conspicuous enough just by nearly slicing the Magistrate's face down the middle and the sooner they were gone, the better.
Her odd change of topic brought him out of his watchdog reverie and he shrugged his broad shoulders slightly. "I know enough to get by." He adjusted the pack of her belongings, suddenly feeling wary of her apparent aquiesence.
"Why?"
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Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2008 7:59 pm
"The sword has some script along the blade," she explained. "I can not read it, nor do I recognize it from any of the books in the library. I thought that if you had studied such things, you might be able to tell me what it meant."
So far, besides the sword's propensity to suck up fresh blood, Merro had not figured out - or communicated to Letalus - any of its uses or dangers, and she felt rather in the dark about it. Besides, one could not exactly chat about the weather with such a companion, and on such a journey.
ooc: It says in an ancient script, "the essence of sacrifice."
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Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2008 8:19 pm
Letalus only grunted in response, reaching under his cloak to unsheathe said sword. As they walked, he tilted it so the engraving caught the sunlight. It had been some time since he read any Elvish this old, so it wasn't surprising Merro couldn't understand it. Even he could only make out one word.
Sacrifice.
Something unpleasant stirred in the back of his mind, a warrior's honed instinct telling him to destroy the blade. "I can't read it all," he said gruffly, quickly hiding the suddenly unpleasant blade back in its scabbard. "Something about a sacrifice. It's Old Elvish." He frowned, glancing at Merro. "Tell me everything you know about it."
If he registered the irony of someone of his rank continually bossing around someone of her rank, it didn't show.
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Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2008 8:31 pm
Her eyes tracked the blade as Letalus examined the sword, and she noted that it still retained its bright, silvery appearance. The sword wasn't hungry yet for its next meal, it seemed, and that was a good thing as far as Merro was concerned. Game hens and inexperienced wolves were in short supply hereabouts.
Letalus' command - it was hardly a request - brought her out of her musings and she stammered a bit as she brought her thoughts into order. Any irritation she might have felt at being ordered about by one of her father's minions was buried under a habit of feeling like the lowest of the low in her own household and her survival instincts trying to sort out whether anything about this sword might best be kept a secret for now.
"Ah...well, it was floating in the back of the cave, as if something was holding it up, but when I took hold of it, it gained weight and has felt like a normal sword since. It also had that buttery color of very old silver, but when fresh blood fell upon it, it gained that sharp new sheen it has now." She glanced back at the sword and then looked back at Letalus.
"I killed a hen on the way here," she added by way of explanation, leaving Letalus to hopefully draw the conclusion that the fresh blood she had mentioned was the hen's and not her own. She left the bit about the wolf out as well. That just sounded too outrageous for anyone to believe without having been there.
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Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2008 8:44 pm
Never once suspecting Merro could swing the sword properly, much less kill anything, Letalus raised his eyebrows in mild surprise. "You? Killed a chicken?" He smiled mirthlessly. "I didn't know noblewomen could wield a sword." Still, leave it to this girl to find an obviously cursed sword in the middle of nowhere and feed it blood. Absurdly, he felt some amount of admiration for her.
He narrowed his eyes at the thought and pressed on. "There was a cult of Elvish warrior turned warlock a long time ago. I'd heard they created several cursed weapons for their best fighters, created specifically to enhance the owner's abilities at great cost." He paused, his expression impassive.
"You might want to find yourself a relic hunter or a wizard of some kind. You might be cursed yourself."
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Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2008 8:54 pm
Goaded by Letalus' mocking admiration - the faint smidge of real stuff that he felt going unnoticed - into a brief flare of anger, she retorted,
"I can handle a sword better than you think! I'm no milkish maiden, spending my days over embroidery and fainting away over every dropped stitch."
She almost fell into a pout, but the information about the possibility of a curse was unsettling, to say the least. Worried into a more honest mood soon afterwards, she admitted,
"I did cut myself on the blade at first. And I was feeling dizzy and spent for a time, but the feeling passed when I killed the hen." She nibbled her bottom lip and then blurted, "Do you truly think I might be cursed somehow by this sword?"
Was she to start craving blood next, as the sword did? Figures she'd pick up an accursed object rather than something helpful. The Saints hated her. With a passion.
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Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2008 9:01 pm
Her spitfire temper amused him even more, but he suddenly turned serious at the mention of her cutting herself. He stopped in his tracks and smoothly reached out, placing both gloved hands on her shoulders and inspecting her visible flesh. "Where did you cut yourself?" he asked, a faint edge to his voice.
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Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2008 9:05 pm
Merro flinched and then tried to take a step back, startled at being touched, but his hands held her firmly.
"My hand," she said, and then repeated herself as she raised her right hand, the palm creased with a thin, blood-scabbed wound. "Just my hand."
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Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2008 9:14 pm
His hands dropped from her shoulders but rather than letting her go completely, Letalus grasped her wrist none too gently, inspecting the wound. He opened his mouth to reprimand her for being careless and to lecture her on the dangers of improperly tended wounds when he was cut off by the approaching thunder of hooves.
While they had been discussing the sword, the town gates became smaller and smaller behind them. Now, assuming the guards wouldn't run them out as soon as they appeared, it was too late to go back. Faces hidden by scarves or cloaks, several ragged men on horses surrounded Letalus and Merro. They hooted and hollered, riding in circles around them as more men, this time on foot, melted out of the surrounding woods.
"It appears you'll get the chance to prove your worth with that sword, my lady," he said quietly, evenly, as he stepped closer to her. Shielding Merro with his cloak, he quickly passed her sword to her while unsheathing his own longsword.
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Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2008 9:24 pm
If she had been less gentleborn, she might have scorched the grass around them with a withering barrage of curses. As it was, she merely gave a breathy murmur which might have been "Saints hate me" or "Saints save me" as she grasped the silver hilt of the sword in her hand and backed closer in to Letalus' shadow.
As the ragtag band of men surrounded them, Merro hastily tried to recall everything she'd observed and tried to learn about swordplay, but unfortunately none of the courtyard battles practiced under her spying eyes had included matches between horsed and unhorsed, nor had there been many melees between more than two or three men at a time. She feared that her worth might end up as a pitifully small measure indeed in the coming fight.
She gripped the swordhilt firmly, planted her feet in the grass, and waited for something to happen. Leading an attack against such superior numbers was most certainly not an option.
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Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2008 4:59 am
Rather pleased with her recent steal, which had been taken from some lazy bandits who'd fallen asleep while guarding their loot, Leana sat comfortably on the rooftop of a towering building, and counting a few coins she'd found in a sack on one of the bandits' person.
"Bandits are always so dumb." she muttered, dropping the coins back in the sack and pulling it shut. "Those thugs don't deserve half of what they steal and they do it in such a stupid manor."
Leana hated when people stole but used irrational ways to do it. Her way was the best way...steal from people right under their noses without them even knowing, and only those who deserved to be stolen from, like rich folk or corrupted nobles. Unlike bandits, who preyed on the weak and innocent, and then taking all that they owned after killing their victims. What a waste.
She shrugged, thinking this over as she usually did every time coming across bandits. After all, she'd believed it to be the work of bandits that had killed her parents. And the old woman who'd raised her had believed so as well.
Leana stood up and was about to jump down and head off to find more people to steal from, when she saw the commotion going on below in the street.
She quickly ducked down and stealthily crawled along the rooftop to find the edge, and looked over. There were a bunch of men on horses surrounding two people, a man and a young woman. From the looks of it, a battle was about to start.
Leana figured it best to get out of the way. She stood up and hastily went to head along the rooftops the other way, but her foot caught a loose shingle and she slipped. Luckily there was a house right next to it, not as tall, and she was able to fall against that one's rooftop without too much harm done. But it sure had been noisy.
"Damn..." she muttered. "I hate when that happens."
OOC: I'm not trying to take away the attackers' attentions...my character's just really clumsy. ^_^"
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Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2008 9:16 am
The glint of cold steel flashed for a second, a blur in the wind against the pale blue sky.
A knife suddenly appeared, stuck in the ground near one of the hooligans.
Three more glints pierced the vale, coming from the shadows of the treeline. "I don't know what ye came to do.. but ride off. This is my neck of the forest, and I'll be damned if anyone but me spills blood in it." said a harsh, but tempered voice. They flashed again, the outline of a scarred face appearing briefly for those with a trained eye.
"I'll give you to three.." he said, his voice trailing around them. It seemed as if the wind carried it in several directions at once.
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Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2008 9:29 am
The ring of horses and men rushing around Letalus and Merro faltered and grew ragged in their movements, like ripples in a pond disturbed by a thrown pebble. Some of the mounted men jerked their horses around to face the forest and the mysterious voice, casting suspicious eyes here and there and finding nothing.
Experienced, yes. Trained, no.
There were murmurs from the brigands as their attention wavered between the suddenly menacing forest and the easy pickings in the grass.
"Wa'll we do, boss?" one of the unkempt men asked uneasily. One of the mounted men wheeled on him and responded angrily,
"Do? We'll do what we allus do, lunkhead!" Gesturing with his short sword in a sweeping arc at the other horsemen, he began shouting orders.
"You all, get in thar and kill what b*****d's claiming the forest as his ter'tory! Ya others, get them two!" And with that, the horsemen were deployed to the treeline while the unmounted men continued the assault on open ground.
Experienced, yes. Experienced in basic battlefield tactics, no.
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