Post by Chroesh on Apr 14, 2009 15:35:47 GMT -5
This thread marks the beginning of the KoC portion of our first cross-faction plot, enacted with members of Darkenvane and the Protectorate Alliance. This one's for guild members only. Enjoy!
The blackened bones of the farmhouse ran with veins of flame. The wooden beams groaned under the heat, and cinders from the roof thatching hung and faded in the night air like fireflies. One of them spun its dying course past Essien Semedi's cheek, so close that it brightened the sheen of his eye. He did not blink.
The young lord of House Semedi stood facing the conflagration, and its chaos of light and shadow gave his frown a feral, even a daemonic cast. One gauntlet entwined the wild tresses of his slave and advisor-- Aleydis, the Zealot-- and he held her beside him, turned towards the vast heat of the fire. Around them passed the armored shadows of House Semedi soldiers, most doing their best to avoid even the threat of their master's gaze.
"Put the fire out," he said.
"My Lord?" It was the closest of his men, and the tremor he fought from his voice made clear that he considered himself unlucky to have passed at that moment.
"Put. The fire. Out," Essien repeated, biting off the end of each word. His fingers made a fist in the zealot's hair. "If someone sees the fire, they might come to look. And if they look, they will realize that we've taken this village. And my effort will have been for nothing." The soldier gave a quick nod and hurried away.
Essien jerked Aleydis' head towards him, and the warmth of his breath on her ear mingled with the kiss of the flames. "Are you certain-- absolutely certain-- that this is the place," he murmured there, with dangerous calm. "This backwater?"
"This will be the beating heart of our Prince's kingdom," Aleydis answered him. Her voice was serene, her expression untouched by the pain that must have been sizzling along her scalp, the result of the Druchii's pitiless grip on her hair. The girl lifted her arm, hand extended towards the riot of fire and fingers splayed as if the spray of cinders were snowflakes drifting through the air to be caught. Her eyes were orange in the angry light.
"Have faith, my Lord. Can you feel how right this place is?"
The knight found himself watching Aleydis' fingertips-- their delicate taper, the way the ashes seemed to hover close to them, beseeching a touch. The furrow of his porcelain brow said that he found a riddle in that gesture; the deepened shadow of his frown made clear that it was not a welcome one. "So be it," Essien said crisply, and pushed the girl ahead of him along the dirt path that sloped up towards the village common.
As he walked, he spoke-- partly to himself, partly to the girl he dragged with him by the hair, in louder tones to the men with shields and halberds who kept pace with him. "If we must remain here, then I will make myself at home. Have my personal effects brought into the temple! And you--" He gave the zealot another shove that almost sprawled her in the dirt, propelling her vaguely towards a frightened knot of villagers kept under guard. "Pick one that will please the god. You have a sense of these things."
The surviving villagers huddled within a pen that once held livestock, under the cold and watchful gaze of half a dozen Semedi guardsmen. Weeping women and children squatted in the center of a ring composed of the village's men-- old men, crippled men, beardless striplings who shrunk from the unsheathed steel of the dark elves. Aleydis approached and peeped at their prizes from under the elbow of the captain.
"This is all?" The zealot sounded disappointed.
Lord Semedi's captain stiffened and lifted his chin, not deigning to look down at the little priestess. "All that lived. Madam."
The girl sighed and slipped through the ring of Druchii, clambering over the fence with careless grace. The males she padded towards on bare feet were no more happy with her presence than those at her back and they stirred uneasily. Behind them, one matron hissed like a cat and forked the sign of the Evil Eye. Aleydis ignored her. Wearing a heedless smile, she walzted into their midst-- certain of the guards' protection, or careless of her own safety. A flash of cream and chestnut had summoned her attention.
"You, child..." The zealot pointed at a maid in the center of the huddle of stinking, quivering flesh.
Wails rose up as the captain pushed forward to pull the desired girl forward, his metal-sheathed fingers pressing cruel dimples into her bare arm. The human was pale, with rich brown hair done up in a maiden's 'lock, and eyes of peridot. Her face was slack with terror that only deepened when Aleydis gently patted one rosy cheek.
"She will do. Bring her. Feed and water the others... we'll have need of them yet."
* * *
Sigmar's temple was dim, its flagstones exposed. Rectangles of dust marked the places where pews had stood before they were pushed to the door in a futile attempt at a barricade; several iron candelabra had spilled during the fighting, leaving smears of ash on the slate where their lights were snuffed. Above this ruin, all but lost in shadow, the statue of holy Sigmar raised a hammer-blow that had never fallen in defense of his faithful.
Semedi stood calmly beneath that threat of retribution, studying his own addition to the altar: a crooked cross of dark wood, fallen to form a great X, and bearing, at each station, a black iron shackle. He coiled the length of a leather whip, a massive, steel-tipped instrument of the sort used by Druchii beastmasters to bring cold ones to heel. After a moment's silence, Essien looked back over his shoulder to find Aleydis standing with her chosen victim.
The knight's gaze passed over this offering with an alien interest, alacrity without motion, as if his violet eyes were the blooms of some carnivorous plant waiting for the opportunity to strike. He pursed his lips.
"Remove her clothes," he said.
"No!"
The girl had been silent until that moment, huge eyes showing their whites in a full circle, mouth agape as she processed the descration before her. But the threat of nudity roused her, sent her stumbling backwards only to be brought up short by the pair of guardsmen left to ward the door. They seized the peasant's arms and held her fast. Aleydis followed slowly, smiling her sweet, soft smile, ceremonial dagger in hand.
"Shhh, pet." The zealot's curled fingers grazed the girl's sweat-streaked brow. "You're being done a great honor. Your mother would weep with pride if she could see you."
As the Druchii soldiers tightened their grip against the human's feeble struggles, Aleydis parted the rough-spun cloth of blouse and skirt with her blade. The fabric fell away, making a coarse puddle of earth-tones at the feet of the little group. Her bare, plump body shivered in the dim light. The girl's head tipped backwards and she gave voice to a low moan, gaze locking on the mute state of her god. She stared at him, desperate and beseeching, even as Aleydis finished her tasked then grasped her gently by the wrist to pull her forward to Essien.
Lord Semedi shouldered his whip and took hold of the village girl with none of his companion's gentleness. His grip closed hard enough to grind the bones of her wrist together, and he jerked the maid stumbling across the last steps that separated her from the cross. Lifting that wrist above her head, Essien began to shackle her facing the god she implored.
"That's right," he murmured to her, as each iron cuff locked around her-- the left wrist, then the right, and then the girl's trim ankles set wide apart. "I want you to watch him, this tribesman you worship." He let the whip uncoil over her back and bottom; its cool leather tickled the inside of the maiden's leg. "Is there some prayer you utter when you desire his protection?" When she only swallowed, Essien glanced at the zealot. "Aleydis?"
"Shall I be her voice, my Lord?" Aleydis seemed delighted at the prospect. She stepped forward, reaching almost tenderly to tuck a stray wisp of hair behind the girl's ear. The gesture earned only a shudder, but the zealot remained oblivious to the signs of fear. She turned her painted face towards the statue and observed it as raptly as their captive while raising her voice in a sing-song chant.
"Repel, O Sigmar, this Servant of Change!
Dispel such fallacies from this unholy from.
I invoke Your Name to repel this abomination.
Not by my strength, but by Yours,
Lord Sigmar, let this heresy be ended!"
The chant ended. Aleydis cocked her head, brows lifted and eyes turned towards the ceiling. Silence answered her.
"It didn't work for the fellow who taught me that, either." The zealot grinned. The girl was wracked with heart-sick sobs.
"Well." Essien let the word hang over the peasant's shaking shoulders. He narrowed his eyes upon the statue in a look of scorn, poised on the balls of his feet, as if he meant to stalk forward and rip the offending thing from the nails that moored it. "Perhaps Sigmar has other business." The Druchii turned and stalked away, trailing the whip behind him across the floor. Its metal tooth clicked in the silences between the maiden's cries.
"You may pray, human child," Essien said, measuring the distance between himself and the shackled girl. "Pray for vengeance, or rescue, or death. I don't care." He swung his arm back, then forward, and the great whip slithered across the flagstones to lick between her heels. "Pray and have nothing for your pains. Your progenitor rots in the ground. His effigy is mere bronze."
Essien raised his arm sharply and the whip he held danced through the dark air.
"Pray."
Lord Semedi snapped back his forearm. The whip's tail carved a trim line of blood above the girl's buttocks.
* * *
When it was over, the peasant hung slack in her bonds. Her back shone with sweat, shuddered from exhaustion; a bright, wet weave of scores marked her, intertwined like the canes of an overgrown rose. Above them, cut deeper into her pale skin, were the circle and crescent that made up the sigil of Slaanesh. Sigmar looked down and kept his silence behind lips smeared with the girl's leavings-- a garish rouge that mocked his pride.
Essien turned from his work and smoothed the skirts beneath his armor. "Summon the others," he told the zealot on her knees behind him. "Tell them that no one must escape from this village. Not one soul. If they do well--"
Semedi fluttered his fingers back at the village maid. "They may have what's left of that."
The blackened bones of the farmhouse ran with veins of flame. The wooden beams groaned under the heat, and cinders from the roof thatching hung and faded in the night air like fireflies. One of them spun its dying course past Essien Semedi's cheek, so close that it brightened the sheen of his eye. He did not blink.
The young lord of House Semedi stood facing the conflagration, and its chaos of light and shadow gave his frown a feral, even a daemonic cast. One gauntlet entwined the wild tresses of his slave and advisor-- Aleydis, the Zealot-- and he held her beside him, turned towards the vast heat of the fire. Around them passed the armored shadows of House Semedi soldiers, most doing their best to avoid even the threat of their master's gaze.
"Put the fire out," he said.
"My Lord?" It was the closest of his men, and the tremor he fought from his voice made clear that he considered himself unlucky to have passed at that moment.
"Put. The fire. Out," Essien repeated, biting off the end of each word. His fingers made a fist in the zealot's hair. "If someone sees the fire, they might come to look. And if they look, they will realize that we've taken this village. And my effort will have been for nothing." The soldier gave a quick nod and hurried away.
Essien jerked Aleydis' head towards him, and the warmth of his breath on her ear mingled with the kiss of the flames. "Are you certain-- absolutely certain-- that this is the place," he murmured there, with dangerous calm. "This backwater?"
"This will be the beating heart of our Prince's kingdom," Aleydis answered him. Her voice was serene, her expression untouched by the pain that must have been sizzling along her scalp, the result of the Druchii's pitiless grip on her hair. The girl lifted her arm, hand extended towards the riot of fire and fingers splayed as if the spray of cinders were snowflakes drifting through the air to be caught. Her eyes were orange in the angry light.
"Have faith, my Lord. Can you feel how right this place is?"
The knight found himself watching Aleydis' fingertips-- their delicate taper, the way the ashes seemed to hover close to them, beseeching a touch. The furrow of his porcelain brow said that he found a riddle in that gesture; the deepened shadow of his frown made clear that it was not a welcome one. "So be it," Essien said crisply, and pushed the girl ahead of him along the dirt path that sloped up towards the village common.
As he walked, he spoke-- partly to himself, partly to the girl he dragged with him by the hair, in louder tones to the men with shields and halberds who kept pace with him. "If we must remain here, then I will make myself at home. Have my personal effects brought into the temple! And you--" He gave the zealot another shove that almost sprawled her in the dirt, propelling her vaguely towards a frightened knot of villagers kept under guard. "Pick one that will please the god. You have a sense of these things."
The surviving villagers huddled within a pen that once held livestock, under the cold and watchful gaze of half a dozen Semedi guardsmen. Weeping women and children squatted in the center of a ring composed of the village's men-- old men, crippled men, beardless striplings who shrunk from the unsheathed steel of the dark elves. Aleydis approached and peeped at their prizes from under the elbow of the captain.
"This is all?" The zealot sounded disappointed.
Lord Semedi's captain stiffened and lifted his chin, not deigning to look down at the little priestess. "All that lived. Madam."
The girl sighed and slipped through the ring of Druchii, clambering over the fence with careless grace. The males she padded towards on bare feet were no more happy with her presence than those at her back and they stirred uneasily. Behind them, one matron hissed like a cat and forked the sign of the Evil Eye. Aleydis ignored her. Wearing a heedless smile, she walzted into their midst-- certain of the guards' protection, or careless of her own safety. A flash of cream and chestnut had summoned her attention.
"You, child..." The zealot pointed at a maid in the center of the huddle of stinking, quivering flesh.
Wails rose up as the captain pushed forward to pull the desired girl forward, his metal-sheathed fingers pressing cruel dimples into her bare arm. The human was pale, with rich brown hair done up in a maiden's 'lock, and eyes of peridot. Her face was slack with terror that only deepened when Aleydis gently patted one rosy cheek.
"She will do. Bring her. Feed and water the others... we'll have need of them yet."
* * *
Sigmar's temple was dim, its flagstones exposed. Rectangles of dust marked the places where pews had stood before they were pushed to the door in a futile attempt at a barricade; several iron candelabra had spilled during the fighting, leaving smears of ash on the slate where their lights were snuffed. Above this ruin, all but lost in shadow, the statue of holy Sigmar raised a hammer-blow that had never fallen in defense of his faithful.
Semedi stood calmly beneath that threat of retribution, studying his own addition to the altar: a crooked cross of dark wood, fallen to form a great X, and bearing, at each station, a black iron shackle. He coiled the length of a leather whip, a massive, steel-tipped instrument of the sort used by Druchii beastmasters to bring cold ones to heel. After a moment's silence, Essien looked back over his shoulder to find Aleydis standing with her chosen victim.
The knight's gaze passed over this offering with an alien interest, alacrity without motion, as if his violet eyes were the blooms of some carnivorous plant waiting for the opportunity to strike. He pursed his lips.
"Remove her clothes," he said.
"No!"
The girl had been silent until that moment, huge eyes showing their whites in a full circle, mouth agape as she processed the descration before her. But the threat of nudity roused her, sent her stumbling backwards only to be brought up short by the pair of guardsmen left to ward the door. They seized the peasant's arms and held her fast. Aleydis followed slowly, smiling her sweet, soft smile, ceremonial dagger in hand.
"Shhh, pet." The zealot's curled fingers grazed the girl's sweat-streaked brow. "You're being done a great honor. Your mother would weep with pride if she could see you."
As the Druchii soldiers tightened their grip against the human's feeble struggles, Aleydis parted the rough-spun cloth of blouse and skirt with her blade. The fabric fell away, making a coarse puddle of earth-tones at the feet of the little group. Her bare, plump body shivered in the dim light. The girl's head tipped backwards and she gave voice to a low moan, gaze locking on the mute state of her god. She stared at him, desperate and beseeching, even as Aleydis finished her tasked then grasped her gently by the wrist to pull her forward to Essien.
Lord Semedi shouldered his whip and took hold of the village girl with none of his companion's gentleness. His grip closed hard enough to grind the bones of her wrist together, and he jerked the maid stumbling across the last steps that separated her from the cross. Lifting that wrist above her head, Essien began to shackle her facing the god she implored.
"That's right," he murmured to her, as each iron cuff locked around her-- the left wrist, then the right, and then the girl's trim ankles set wide apart. "I want you to watch him, this tribesman you worship." He let the whip uncoil over her back and bottom; its cool leather tickled the inside of the maiden's leg. "Is there some prayer you utter when you desire his protection?" When she only swallowed, Essien glanced at the zealot. "Aleydis?"
"Shall I be her voice, my Lord?" Aleydis seemed delighted at the prospect. She stepped forward, reaching almost tenderly to tuck a stray wisp of hair behind the girl's ear. The gesture earned only a shudder, but the zealot remained oblivious to the signs of fear. She turned her painted face towards the statue and observed it as raptly as their captive while raising her voice in a sing-song chant.
"Repel, O Sigmar, this Servant of Change!
Dispel such fallacies from this unholy from.
I invoke Your Name to repel this abomination.
Not by my strength, but by Yours,
Lord Sigmar, let this heresy be ended!"
The chant ended. Aleydis cocked her head, brows lifted and eyes turned towards the ceiling. Silence answered her.
"It didn't work for the fellow who taught me that, either." The zealot grinned. The girl was wracked with heart-sick sobs.
"Well." Essien let the word hang over the peasant's shaking shoulders. He narrowed his eyes upon the statue in a look of scorn, poised on the balls of his feet, as if he meant to stalk forward and rip the offending thing from the nails that moored it. "Perhaps Sigmar has other business." The Druchii turned and stalked away, trailing the whip behind him across the floor. Its metal tooth clicked in the silences between the maiden's cries.
"You may pray, human child," Essien said, measuring the distance between himself and the shackled girl. "Pray for vengeance, or rescue, or death. I don't care." He swung his arm back, then forward, and the great whip slithered across the flagstones to lick between her heels. "Pray and have nothing for your pains. Your progenitor rots in the ground. His effigy is mere bronze."
Essien raised his arm sharply and the whip he held danced through the dark air.
"Pray."
Lord Semedi snapped back his forearm. The whip's tail carved a trim line of blood above the girl's buttocks.
* * *
When it was over, the peasant hung slack in her bonds. Her back shone with sweat, shuddered from exhaustion; a bright, wet weave of scores marked her, intertwined like the canes of an overgrown rose. Above them, cut deeper into her pale skin, were the circle and crescent that made up the sigil of Slaanesh. Sigmar looked down and kept his silence behind lips smeared with the girl's leavings-- a garish rouge that mocked his pride.
Essien turned from his work and smoothed the skirts beneath his armor. "Summon the others," he told the zealot on her knees behind him. "Tell them that no one must escape from this village. Not one soul. If they do well--"
Semedi fluttered his fingers back at the village maid. "They may have what's left of that."