Chapter 7

A dead body falling through a doorway certainly put a stop to any form of bravado and good mood The Orc had, the blade in his hand retracting in a measured movement that almost hid the subtle tremors. With narrowed eyes, The Orc pushed past Tyrian roughly, maybe assured that the boy would not drive his sword through his exposed back through reputation of his order alone.

He was right of course.

Tyrian watched as doorway was suddenly filled by a figure clad in golden armour, not a lustrous as Helion's, but still polished to a mirror shine. An azure blue caplet hung on one shoulder depicting an abstracted bird in flight, the image too stylized to discern the species. An emblazoned crest hung proudly upon his breastplate, not large enough to engulf the entire piece, but big enough to distinguish him as one of The Storm Caller order, similar to Renlin.

A golden frame of the arment style helm did little to hide the contemplative gaze of the man as his eyes swept over the gathering of crooks and ner-do-wells.

"There was a group of vermin outside that insisted I was not welcome" The Man commented casually as he wiped blood from his sabre with a cloth that looked suspiciously like the rags the men in the alleyway had been wearing, "I do hope you shall not be as inhospitable, for your sake more than mine"

Under normal circumstances, Tyrian would have viewed the man as pompous and arrogant with his tone of superiority and demeaning gaze. Yet at that moment, he could have kissed the man like a long lost love.

Undeterred by corpse on the floor, or the armour clad man that seemed to tower over him despite holding the height advantage, The Orc moved in front of The Knight with an easy smile.

"Honoured Storm Caller" The Orc said without a hint of mockery, falling into a courtly bow of deference that mimicked the genuine article with surprising accuracy, "I apologise if ya have run into trouble getting here, but I can assure ya tha' any fools ya have encountered ain't a part o' my band o' merrymakers"

Tyrian could almost feel the incredulity that emanated from The Knight as he stared down the simpering orc.

"I did not come here to watch a fool spend his final moments in a jester routine, accept your fate with honour and grace, maybe then the gods above shall spare your worthless soul"

"My good knight, on what charge do ya slay us, we where simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. I apologise t' ya if we caused offense"

"Enough of your drivel, I shall hear no more-"

Soft clinking interrupted The Knight as The Orc lightly jingled a pouch before him, an innocent look on The Orc's face. While his eyes did narrow, The Knight made no motion to cut the foul cur where he stood, instead reaching for the pouch with a measured hand. Weighing it a few times in his hand, The Knight threw a disapproving look at The Orc, not wrathful or filled with righteous anger only reproachful.

With a slight scowl, The Orc motioned to his men, causing a demon born man to fling a pouch similar to the one held by The Knight. Sighing exaggeratedly, the pouch was deposited in the Knight's hand, the coins letting out a soft laughter as the collided against each other.

"And why pray tell should this slight to my honour stand?" The Knight asked incredulously, weighing the bags in his hand, "When I could simply slay you and pick the coinage off of your cadavers?"

"Well if ya did that" The Orc laughed, throwing his arms out wide, "Me and th' lads wouldn't have the faculties t' make a donation t' ya person fer th' swell job ya been doing"

Awkward silence filled the air as The Orc fell once more into a dignified bow of subservience, The Knights harsh gaze boring into him with every passing second, as if daring him to drop the deference and respect for even a second. 

"I concede your point" The Knight said curtly, snapping the palpable tension as he sheathed his sword, "Seems I was too rash in my judgement Sir..."

"Crak"

"Sir Crak. Well, I do apologise for the interruption. On my name, Albert Flitheart, I swear no such molestation shall come from me again" Albert turned heal abruptly, striding out of the house with purposeful steps, "Carry on"

Incredulity coiled in Tyrian's stomach like an adder, bile became a caustic venom welling in his throat. That was not a knight, that was not a man of honour and courage, that was no man at all, just a beast driven by desire and greed. While he had known the man for seconds, never even trading a single word, Tyrian could say with confidence he had never hated a living thing more than he did that man.

Crak let out a relived sigh after he was sure Albert was well out of earshot, throwing a contemptuous look to the corpse on the ground. After kicking it to the side, he turned to Tyrian with an expectant look, eyes moving lazily over his sheathed sword and buckled shield.

"Man of me word ain't I?" he chuckled at Tyrian's confused expression, "May have been the shittiest miracle I ever seen, but miracle's a miracle right? Draw 'em, I'll give ya that much"

While he held for a second, Tyrian quickly scrambled to draw his weapons, moving to put his back to a corner as a last desperate bid at survival. His eyes moved from Crak for but a second to adjust the staps on his heater shield, but the moment he raised them, Crak was before him, sabre raised in one hand to deliver a killing blow.

Discordant shrieking filled the hideout as steel met steel, Tyrian moving his shield moments before the razor edge could sink into his shoulder. Not a lethal blow he noted, the strike only meant to cripple him. Either Crak was warry not to over commit to a killing blow to early, or more likely, he wanted to take his time with the kill.

A screeching melody rang out as the two met in a furious clash, blade meeting blade in a desperate display of swordsmanship, Tyrian parrying strike after strike, waiting for an opening Crak never gave between lazy strikes. No matter how amateurish and lethargic Crak's strikes seemed, he never let his blade stray to far from a guard position, denying Tyrian every retaliatory strike he made.

For a time, the stale mate held, the two locked in a dance of parried strikes and ineffectual counters. The deadlock would not last, as Crak, maybe overconfident in his own ability or to dismissive of Tyrian's, threw a sloppy strike with his sabre. Not one to waste fourtune, Tyrian slammed the sabre away with his shield, Crak's arm flying wide with the impact leaving him open and exposed.

Only then did Tyrian notice a dagger missing from Crak's bandolier.

Blazing pain shot across Tyrian's face as the dagger dug into his flesh, Crak swinging the weapong in a wide arc, scoring a shallow cut along Tyrian's face, right over his left eye. Tyrian felt the blade dig into his eye, felt the membrane strip, felt the nerves and blood vessels be set aflame with agony, felt the organ ruin beyond repair.

Crak held a trimuphant look as his dagger flashed in the afternoon sun streaming through the boarded windows, wet blood following it's path like a morbid streamer. Surely Crak believed the pain would send Tyrian reeling, he bet on that fact, so open was his guard. It would be his last gamble, Tyrian swore it.

Rather than crying in pain and clutching his ruined eye, he steadied his stance, dropping to one knee like lightning, and swung low with his blade.

"Look, we're match-"

Crak's boast was cut short as he saw the blades wicked path all too late. Despite a desperate attempt at evasion, Crak's right leg was bisected halfway down the lower leg. Unsatisfied, Tyrian's blade continued it's arc, catching the kneecap of his other leg, shattering the bone as the blade continued it's swing unperturbed by the sickening crunch of bone and snap of tendon.

Crak toppled like a house built of sand, his foundation crumbling from under him as he collapsed to the floor, howling in agony as he clutched the stump that was once his foot. Stepping over the writhing form of Crak, Tyrian surveyed the gathered thugs with his remaining eye, twelve in total, a ridiculous number for a freshly inaugurated oathkeeper to handle.

With steeled resolve, he looked out over the rabble before him, issuing a silent challenge to all present. What little oath magic Tyrian could perform swirled around him, giving off a faint golden glow as it embraced him, not much, but still better than nothing.

Tyrian imagined he looked rather intimidating. That was until Crak slammed a dagger into his thigh. Crak had underestimated Tyrian's resolve, and he had in turn underestimated Crak's, it was almost funny.

The comedy lasted only till a particularly brave brigand broke from the the crowd, charging Tyrian with a dagger in his hand and a war cry on her lips, ramming the dagger into his side with the opening Crak bought her, letting the moment ram her into Tyrian. Strange clarity washed over Tyrian, his mind sharpened to a razor's edge as his body seemed to move on pure instinct, independent of all his will save for that to live.

Lucky was his first thought, if that had been a longer blade, or she had struck a little higher, he would be debilitated beyond the point of combat, though he wasn't far off. Wrapping his arm around the elven woman's shoulder and grabbing the back of her shirt for support, he drove his blade into her chest, causing the woman to gasp in pain.

With a cruel twist, the blade aligned itself horizontally, before ripping away the woman's side as it burst free of her flesh. Tryian discraded the woman to the side after his balance was regained, staggering away from the injured orc at his feet, no need to expose himself with a coup de grace when simply moving was enough to remove Crak as a threat.

Though his injury had emboldened some of the other thugs, while some shrunk back at the sight of his brutal execution of one of their own, the elven woman still desperatley trying to keep her organs inside as she curled in pain, others saw the dagger in both his leg and side. On his own, Tyrian could easily dispatch any of them, maybe even most of them gathered even if they all struck at once, but he was wounded and dying, simply easy prey in their eyes.

Next to charge was a burly lion beast kin, butcher's cleaver held in one hand as he barrelled towards Tyrian. But this man had no unexpected dagger to give him reprieve from Tyrian's attention. The make shift weapon was easily deflected as the tip of a heater shield rammed into the beast kin's thigh, shattering his leg bone with a horrific crack that caused the rest of the charging thugs to falter. Not making the same mistake twice, Tyrian brought his blade across the beast kin's neck, watching him drop with gurgled gasps.

Two down, ten to go. It was just a training exercise, repeat forms and routines over and over, just move through the motions and eventually the exercise would end. Tyrian disassociated, the blood loss and pain making his mind a hazy mess. Swing, parry, block, repeat. Move or die, find a corner to prevent an attack from behind, don't stop moving, don't stop...

A blade of some kind tore his right cheek open turning the side of his face into a permanent, morbid grin. He didn't even have time to register the weapon or the holder, he just had to keep swinging, keep what little oath magic he could muster running through his body.

Through the muddled haze, memories guided his torn hands as he swung again and again.

He was sparring with Renlin, the two locked in a clash of swords and wills. 

Tyrain parried a sloppy strike from his side and swung his blade across the thugs gut before their allies could retaliate.

Rocar was discussing cause and effect, explaining the ways his order twisted them to their will.

With a subtle shift of the shield, a wayward strike connected with an allies leg, taking another out of the fight for a time.

Esther was bragging about a training session he had aced, going into over dramatic details over his uncanny sense and tactics for spotting deception, and all the little tricks he would weave in himself.

A hidden dagger flashed as it circled behind Tyrian, without much though, he pivoted to the side and dismembered the offending limb as it struck out with the cruel blade.

Lithiana spoke of the hunt, the way to distinguish an easy mark from a tough fight. How to pick the heard of one by one to induce fear and discomfort to begin the inevitable chase with a psychological edge.

When a member of the gang stumbled in the mad melee, dropping their guard and nerve, Tyrian took the chance. Barrelling his way through the encirclement, using his shield as both battering ram and club, he descended on the gang member, driving his blade through the heart in a swift motion.

After some time, his memories just returned to his duels with Renlin, the time they spent together and the memories they shared. Tyrian just hoped those memories brought Renlin as much comfort as they did him.

Genius was a term used to describe Tyrian among his instructors, a savant with the blade and with the drive and ability to train more hours than anyone else in the order bar some exceptional few. He had bested those far above his age and experience in single combat, been heralded as one of the greatest talents in the order.

But he was just a man, barley a man at that, only reaching his twentieth in the last week. He could not fight and defeat twelve men by his lonesome. A fight had been made of it, three of the thugs had sustained debilitating injuries, rolling on the ground in pain or crawling away in desperation. four lay still, never to rise again.

Though each strike had come at a cost, the floorboards below him soaked in his own life blood as it poured from his torn flesh, shallow gasps escaping his mouth as he staggered on legs like that of a new born deer's. Hazy eyes gazed listlessly around the room, as though seeing the world for the first time, a world half covered and tinted red.

Time slowed to a crawl as Tyrian's addled mind came to focus to see a terrible sight. A kitchen knife, simple and effective, was hungrily leaping for his exposed side, his armour still in the process of being ripped off by the mob surrounding him, the noble steel reduced to scraps.

Fatal, that was for certain, you couldn't simply shrug off a punctured lung with sheer will, it was a miracle he had made it this far as is. It would be simple, the blade would rupture the organ in a single strike, he would fall, drowning on his blood from the inside, and he would perish. It was that simple.

On lacerated legs he stood, with torn and shredded muscles too weary to hold the weapons he still clung too like a drowning man to driftwood, all piloted by a mind that had reached its limit. Despite its wicked gleam, the blade almost looked merciful, a promise of peace and oblivion, an end to the pain.

A vocal part of Tyrian wished for it, welcomed the steel to sink into his flesh and surrender to the gods judgment, but only a part. A wild beast thrashed, screaming and bellowing into the cruel and uncaring void of oblivion; he had arms that could swing, he had legs that could stand, and he had fire in his heart. And maybe, just maybe, he had one last desperate ploy for life.