Thread: Portal - The Inquisition of Eastborne

Rough pressure of the knights palm squeezed down across Brigid's delicate spine as she laid bowed across the front of the majestic warhorses sturdy saddle as it trotted through the rubble strewn surrounds of the breached tower and wall. Fourth Infantry! Third Archery! and Seventh Cavalry! We'll establish our triage here! The commanders words barked out over the din of seemingly distant battle taking place mere streets away from this apparently claimed patch of Eastborne's turf as his steed marched about the swarming soldiers. His piercing stern gaze found it's way to his personal squire who eagerly followed along in the wake of his movements. You'll be of little use to me as dead squire and I'm tired of breaking in new ones! So take this blabbering mess of a girl and move her to the internment camp immediately! Tents were quickly being erected in due haste while several heavy drums rang with booming strikes that echoed out over the roar of battle and communicated to other positions a simple message on the situation at this front presently. With an abrupt and unconcerned lift and toss by the nape of her neck, Brigid was sent hurtling to the ground at the feet of the aforementioned squire. The relatively young lad with tangled blonde hair and wide attentive brown eyes quickly moved towards Brigid and drove his knee into her back forcing her face down into unforgiving hard cobblestone road with a press of his hand. Make sure to gag her until we can confirm whether or not she's a witch, and bind those hands so there is no finger waggling! The commander snorted out with one last look towards the eager to please squire who emphatically answered. Yes Sir Luwundale! Right away Sir Luwundale! Immediately went about working a tightly twirled up sweat and dirt stained wash rag around Brigid's face, forcing it to cover and dig into her lips as he cinched it painfully into place against the back of her head. Small sturdy leather bags were next in line as the squire manhandled Brigid's arms and forced the tight fist sized sacks around her hands and clasped them into place. Shackles were the last instrument to come into play as he forced her wrists together behind her back and locked the wiry thin young ladies arms together against the dip of her aching back. As she was being yanked unceremoniously up off the ground by the young yet physically fit squire of a similar age to her own, a most unsettling sight crossed before Brigid's field of view. It was an image straight out of a minstrels stories or an artist's rendering of things she had heard of but never once had seen, or perhaps even thought she would view with her own eyes. Dulled reddish scales along the belly of fantastic beast, thicker, heavier crimson saturated natural armoring swept along the back of what could only be a dragon. A dragon without wings, and with a rider of gargantuan stock settled across a black ashen saddle. Horns sprouted from the helmet of Sir Fyndrake, in mimicry of the dragons own intimidating and lethal looking curved bony protrusions. The lumbering steed and it's rider, who bore a hammer that looked like it weighed twice as much Brigid and could crush a skull flat with one swing passed by her, blotting out the rising sun briefly from her view as it trudged up to the wreckage of the collapsed tower. There was a reverberating inhale as the beastly mount reared up briefly and it's chest expanded before it lowered it's wide open maw towards the very opening that Brigid had stumbled out of. Scorching, flesh blistering flame flowed out of the land bound dragons mouth and as the roar of that exhaled inferno swept and washed across the rubble, the curdling screams and shrieks of men and women still trapped within filled the air. --------------------------- Thom had settled his mind up and set his face into a grim stone cast expression as he plodded through the rank and foul waters of the shadow filled sewer tunnel. He stubbornly refused to hear Johnathan's pleas and calls for him to come back and rethink his decision and marched on towards what was surely his own death. His hand adjusted on the leather grip of the short blade clenched at his side as remained laser focused on the sounds of battle emanating from above and his path towards joining it. As his eyes made out the gleam of the metal rungs of a ladder set into the stone wall of the sewer, Thom slung the simple wooden shield he carried in his other hand across his back and sheathed his stout short sword. My mind's made up John! He scowled and his voice seethed with anger and frustration as he arrived at the ladder and turned to look towards his pursuing friend. Your plan sounded all well good, but it doesn't sound so bloody fantastic now! His water logged boot settled on the bottom rung of the ladder while his hands gripped a rung higher up, though he hesitated. Directly above them the intensity of the fight was fully audible. Swords rang against shields. The very distinct sound of flesh being sliced open and the accompanying guttural screams and grunts of agony issued down through the grating above Thom. Light trickled down over him in a shaft of dusty quality that was blotted out on occasion as combatants passed by over head. Thom gritted his teeth together, looking towards John with an imploring determined gaze. Fuck this man, let's go! Let's get in the fight! Cut these Empire bastards down! Thom lifted his foot upward and began to ascend towards the iron grate above. Those brave words and equally intended movements upwards were abruptly frozen in place as a spray of blood showered down from the grating and splattered Thom right across his upturned face. His grip fumbled on the ladder and his foot slipped as he fell backwards with a shriek of surprise and landed awkwardly against the floor of the slick yet brutal stone of the sewage tunnel. Ahhh! His hand came across his back as his shield cracked and splintered from the impact. Thom rolled over onto his side, face burying half way into the sewage swirling past him as he spasmed and grasped at the broken frame of the shield. One long thick splinter could be seen, clouding the back of Thom's shirt with a fresh sweeping stain of blood that flowed from the deep wound where it had pierced into his back. Johnathan wasn't much of a healer, but it didn't take one to tell that Thom was gravely injured and that the wooden shrapnel of his shield that was burrowed into his back wouldn't be something easily remedied or pulled out. As Thom's blood swept into the sewer and was carried across the surface of the murky liquid, his friends face could be seen quickly going pale in tone as he gasped painfully for air and spewed curses from his lips. --------------------------- From the darkness of the doorway Kestrels recovering eyes were spared a brief moment to watch the battle unfolding mere strides before her. Soldiers from both sides were strewn about the convergence of streets, several wounded to various levels of severity while others, some of which by her own hand were outright dead. The horse of one of the Empire's knights thrashed about further up the besieged roadway, it's front fore limbs cleaved in half by the sweeping axe of Hrothgar while Kestrel was busy indoors with her own problems. With one broad swing of a long blade that sent one of Eastborne's men spinning to his knees as it sliced across his shoulder a knight in not so gleaming plate mail stepped forward towards the death throes of the warhorse. He led his own massive steed by the reins with his free hand and without sparing another moment of consideration to the enemy he had just cleaved down he sank the point of his sword directly down through the belly of the horse, piercing the joints in the armor as he put the steed out of it's misery. Immediately his attentions were pulled back into the fray, and with one swift movement that had been practiced over and over during the course of his life he was back up in the saddle of his chain mail barded black war horse. Suddenly the towering steed was turned into a lethal instrument of destruction that seemingly worked in near perfect unison with the rider on it's back. Blade and hooves wrought a path of devastation around the mounted knight as a handful of soldiers from Eastborne were swiftly sent to their ends. As the din of the noise surrounding her gained clarity again, Kestrel couldn't help but note the distinct creak of a floor board somewhere behind her in the empty smoke filled house. She turned in time to bear witness to the source as it materialized into view in the back corner of the darkened chamber that was once someone's living room. Shimmering, in a field of images that swayed in a dizzying pattern that made it impossible to focus on any single one stood a man draped in white robes that were clean of any blemish. Blue stars decorated it's flowing embroidery, the symbol of the God of Magic, Merasheel. Already his hands danced and gestured in her direction while the very air around him crackled with power as his voice spoke in a thunderous archaic jumble of nonsense to Kestrel's ear. His blurred and indiscernible image snapped a hand forward towards her as a singular metal ring was hurled in her general direction. In a single strobe of blinding light the ring multiplied by six and enlarged in size as they spun towards her from head to toe. The rings opened, severing their perfect circular shape as they sped quick as arrows to embrace their target and enclose her in their mystical bindings. The white robed haze of the wizard meanwhile was already flowing and turning his attentions unto yet another magical assault in the event that Kestrel would somehow avoid this entrapment. --------------------------- Hrothgar plowed forward, holding the dead knight before himself as he surged through the streets towards the archers ahead. The knight from Kestrel's vantage point had turned his attentions up the road towards where Flora was just now joining the rampaging half blooded orc's charge. The battle here had taken an unexpected turn for the worse with the inclusion of that monstrous red skinned primal force and as much as the elder knight hated to admit it the call for reinforcements needed to go out. It's not that he felt they were in danger of being driven back, far from it, but that orc and the arrival of that magic wielding elf were slowing down the whole affair. Clearly and presently not endangered himself, the grizzled veteran knight swung his face guard aside and lifted a brass horn to his lips that he acquired from where it was strapped upon his saddle. While his knees guided his steed back up the road towards the troublesome pair of foes the horn sounded once and it's sound resonated over the discordant noise of battle. The instrument was settled back into place as the knight tucked himself low along the neck of his valiant steed and spurred it forward, blood smeared blade in hand and at the ready. He wouldn't arrive in time though to make any immediate difference, and nor would Sir Fyndrake whose attentions were drawn towards the sound of the horn as it rose up from a few streets further beyond the city's walls. Arrows though streaked through the air in greeting from the archers, most finding themselves deflected by the spin of Flora's whip, though a handful trickled through. As it grew clear that arrows would soon be a non option, the leather clad rank of archers began to turn and draw back. As they split, the raising sight of pikes appeared, being lifted to the ready by crouched soldiers littered among the archers retreating numbers. They dug the ends of their weapons into the ground, ten men in all and formed a wall of waiting impalement as a young man stood tall behind them. His long brown hair fell behind his back as his clean white simple robes with the single blue star of Merasheel denoted his wizardly rank as an apprentice within the Empire. He was already finishing the incantation of a spell as the pack of archers cleared out around him and the pikes were set into position. With a hand coated in black sludge drained from a flask onto his palm he swept his gesturing hand forward and finished the simple, yet effective spell. As the black ichor of flung forward and dissipated into the air, the cobble lined roadway beneath the feet of Hrothgar and forward for what would be a few long strides of the mountainous half orc became covered in the slippery black grease. Flora, who lagged behind the far greater strides of the barbaric brute was fortunately a few strides away from finding her own feet under the slick oil that might threaten to spill Hrothgar directly into the waiting line of pikes.