Ambling through the forests along the border of Stanislav and Thalia, it was well past midnight and the heavily wooded area yielded numerous bandits, brigands, and cutthroats. Of course, being a manslaying assassin that he was, he thirsted for the blood to pour. He wanted to see it drizzle upon the ground in a fine mist, and spray paint the various flora as though he were a man possessed. Possessed and crazed. He was seen often by marauders as a snowy, ashen-haired wolf. Given his Midorian side of things, they'd begun to sprout rumors of the 'Wolf of Miburu'; a supposed psychotic and crazed individual who stalked the borderline. By letting one man live each time he encountered a group of thieves or marauding warriors he let his actions speak for themselves; he let that one man spread the rumors like wildfire and sweep over the region.
While not enough on his own to deter them, his infamy grew as did his legend and that, that instilled dread into the craven and the pusillanimous. This would often lead them to be paranoid, unable to hunt for food or get proper rest; it made them all the more timorous and when you're starving, cold and haven't slept in a few days because you're so in fear for your life, well that just makes you all the more susceptible to attack. Like his namesake, he would run people ragged; instilling a great trepidation in the 'survivors'. What was worse was that once they started to realize he was tracking those he let live to the hideouts of other brigands like they're a wounded animal bleeding and he was simply following the trail of blood they were leaving behind--they started abandoning one another altogether.
Chaos would erupt; pandemonium would convert stout warriors into sniveling children as a great apprehension apprehended them. Tirelessly, he hunted the groups down until only sparse populations remained. Like swathes of trees being burned away by the entire acre, he was intensely and unceasingly harsh to those he deemed too unfit or dishonorable. For those that were marauders, barbarians, and savages, only cold steel also death would await them. It was Beguiling and entrancing, and, in a way, mesmerizing. The way he could dispatch the lives of men with singular, precise blows to open areas; the carotid, the femoral of an exposed thigh, or the severing of knuckles of the fingers and left them at the mercy of his other blades. Three-inches was a far way to cut, though one might not think so. It was enough for those that stood in his way to conform to the harsh reality of their own mortality.
Seta continued on, following the trail his victim had led him on. The vegetation disturbed; branches broken in the wake of a heavy set of steps he came to a clearing. A large open space where no pine or Ash trees resided, Instead, in the middle was a knoll, a mound or a hill with the mouth to a cave. Before the mouth of the cave was a large bonfire, and around it a gathering of bandits, thieves and brigands. His steps up till now had been deathly silent; he left no trail as he followed carefully in the footsteps someone desperately trying to get away from a lurking shadow not far behind. It was only when he deliberately stepped hard with his leather boots did he snap a branch and alert the dozen or so men surrounding the pyre.
"Who goes there?!" One man shouted in a paranoid voice, quickly rising to his feet, sword in hand.
Even with the light of the pyre, he could see nothing that was until Seta came into view more and more. His expeditious walking garnered the attention of the rest of the group who all stood up. Their faces paled when they say Seta's snowy complexion and white silvery hair. It was the Wolf of Miburu! As Seta stood there along the slope of the hill, one booted foot jutting out before the other, his haori; a traditional Midorian hip- or thigh-length kimono-style jacket, worn over a kosode fluttered in the wind behind him. He always one sleeve on and one cast off, usually his right sleeve.
"I want..." Seta's eyes flashed amongst the group until landing on a man in the very back. He then rose one vambrace wrapped limb and pointed causing the man to shriek.
"Him." Lightning flashed behind Seta who looked dead set on getting what he wanted.
"Huh?! Are you crazy?! You know how many people are here?" The man Seta that had originally addressed him declared.
Seta's eyes flashed again, their dark almond colored irises catching another lightening and reflected back into the faces of those beneath him.
"I'd say...15?" With each flash of electrical current Seta's shadow seemed to grow larger and more ominous.
"You're nuts if you think you can take us all on!" The man shouted angrily, feeling offended.
Seta sighed, continuing forwards undaunted. The first man to stepped forwards to put a hand on Seta's shoulder. Seta slowly turned his head towards the hand then he stared at the man's solar plexus. That was their first mistake. The second when the man tried to shove him back but despite the man's girth, Seta didn't budge one step backward. Instead, Seta's hand had coiled itself around the man's thumb and the back of his sweaty, thick backhand and rotated it counter-clockwise viciously snapping the man's radial bones in his wrist. The pain was immediate and the man screamed with it in his voice. He was taken to the ground with a swift quick to the knee and stretching out the man's arm to the side before he kicked the back of the elbow breaking his arm backward like the stick he'd stepped on.
Not yet finished, Seta then slammed his boot to the back of the man's skull; connecting with the base of the cranium like a piston It drove the unforgivable man's head straight into a large protruding stone with a sickening 'crack' that could even churn the stomachs of the bandits as the man stopped moving almost entirely immediately. One of their biggest, heaviest strikers was just taken down in a mob of fluidity and graceful movements followed by forceful impact to specific joints. Now they knew why he was called ‘Wolf’. He was something to be admired from afar unless you wanted to be mauled single-handedly. Seta proceeded forwards, unabated like a raging storm he walked right in the middle of the host of bandits.
The second hostile emerged from behind, however, Seta was no fool. Everything he did deliberately and with purpose. Everything for Seta slowed down as his reaction speed took over. He grabbed Izanagi, sheath and all, and shoved it down, sending the sheath careening upward and into the jaw bone of his assailant. The sheath connected before the man's blade could even connect. The blow sent the attacker sailing backward, losing grip on his sword. Seta caught the cruciform shaped sword before it touched the ground. The attacker hit the ground, hard; shoulders and the back of his neck and head ultimately toppling over, rolling several times before rolling to a stop onto his hands and knees. He spat up several teeth all at once. His teeth that remained were shattered; like a mirror fracture.
Seta was soon upon the man as he counted his teeth with his tongue. Gripping the unsharpened portion of the long, narrow shaped cruciform blade. The enemy looked up to see, to his horror Seta gripping the edges with both hands like a handle or lever; the thick thongs of leather and strips of steel covering his palms kept the blunted weapon from cutting into his hands. He slung the weapon down as though holding a mace and cleaved the man's head in twain. Blood erupted from his scalp as Seta pressed a boot to the lobotomized as he pried the weapon from the crevice in the enemy's skull with a slurping sound as the spongy tissues of the brain re-carved its way back out letting go as it spun vertically in the air before grabbing the long sword yet again by the hilt. The body of the man he'd half-sworded for the murder stroke, slumped backward as Seta turned to fight the third assailant.
He charged the third attacker, Sweeping the long sword from the ground along his left hip to meet the blade coming down in an overhead cleaving motion. The forward swept cross guard ceased the motion of the attacking blade only after it struck blade-to-blade, careened down the length of Seta's sword dispersing sparks as the steel flaked away little by little until it hit the handguard. Locking up with the man, Seta kicked at his knee snapping it backward in violent retreat, dropping the man to one knee. Now, having the advantage of leverage, Seta torqued his body, rotating it and angling his sword downwards before he forced his own blade into the earth pinned the swordsman's sword to the ground as well with the quillions.
Seta then brought a foot across the man's face laterally, snapping the man's head to the left violently and dropping him to his second knee and both hands. Jarred and disoriented, the brigand shook his head trying to get the numbing sensation that had overcome him as his body raised once again. But, before the man could lean all the way back, Seta's body continued to rotate, planting his right foot, pivoting sharply as the top of his left booted foot slung out in an arc, 'hooking' the fore of his ankle where his foot could flex and the top of the foot; hundreds of pounds of force impacted the back of brigands head shoving it down unto the jutting round pommel. It was enough to crush the man's cheekbone, crack his eye socket, and fracture his nasal passages like bridges buckling to the fury of a rising river. The man yelped, as he rebounded from the hilt. Seta's foot set down behind but only momentarily as it then swept forwards to kick the sword, he'd taken from his second opponent letting it gleam as it spun diagonally.
Seta suddenly flipped forwards in place, extending a leg forwards to strike the pommel and send it like a lance to shatter the man's clenched teeth, the needlepoint tip piercing out the back his skull near the base. As soon as Seta landed gracefully, His hands both took hold of and twisted the blade brutally causing bones to shift and flesh and muscle to shear, separating from the bone that was crumbling due to the traumatic injury. Seta then, with raw savagery in his eyes, torqued his hips to the side and tore the blade out sideways. This motion was fluid, quick and effectively separated the upper maw of the human being from the bottom jawbone. This caused the top of his head to 'flop' to the side as it hung from the elasticity of the bit of muscle along the opposite side of his jaw.
The body slumped sideways to the ground, tongue stick flicking as if trying to mutter something and blood inundating not only the vegetation but also the soft, grainy soils at Seta’s feet. Marching past the deceased body of a much larger man than he himself was, he flexed his wrist, whirling the blade in hand. It 'screamed' as it was spun through the air--around and around and around it went, building momentum and velocity steadily. His eyes darting back and forth, Seta pursued his next opponent. When a spearman lunged at him, jumped back and cleaved the shaft in half before impaling the man upon the long swords broad blade; entering his solar plexus, it tore through the elastic band of muscle, perforated his heart and ran straight out the back. Pulling the sword back out, the man fell to his knees before being summarily beheaded with a roundabout stroke from the Stanislavian blade.
"Who the hell is this guy?! An assassin or something?!" One of the men shouted as Seta dropped the cumbersome weapon. Its bottom was too heavy for one such as he who was used to a more elegant design.
"No," Said one of the other men, speaking up as Seta stood amidst the scene of a massacre. The bodies of several, slaughtered by or with their own weapon.
"He isn't assassin. He may kill those who are targets, true, but he doesn't do it for money. He is a Samurai. And he kills for honor and pride at the behest of his lordship." The man stepped out of the crowd, hair dark as coal, unlike Seta's white tresses. Also, unlike Seta who had wavy hair like plucked downy feathers, this one had crisp-- straight long hair. Much the same went for the two following him.
"Am I right, Wolf? Are you Samurai? or are you just a Hitokiri--a manslayer?"
"I am Brigadier Seta Soichiro of the Stanislavian 13th Legion--and I've come to mete out divine punishment. You are all dead men by the order of Lord Commander Sjur Skramstad." Seta declared.
"Do try to die with some form of dignity." He then said coldly.
"Lest this is a slaughter of beasts and not men."
"So that's it, should we bare our necks to your blade as we prostrate beneath you? Where's the justice?! Where's the trial!?" The masterless samurai, Ryūzaki questioned.
"Who said there would ever be a trial for a fear monger like you?" Seta said unemotionally.
"Tell me ronin, where is your master? What's that? You don't have one? For shame! Shame upon you for banding with brigands, thieves, and murderers! Shame upon your family--shame upon all who know of your wretched existence! If you have any shred of honor left--you'll commit seppuku."
"How dare you condescend to Ryūzaki Tsuneari, I'll have your tongue!" The samurai to the right of Ryūzaki, the man that had originally called Seta out in the first place, shouted and went to unsheathe his sword.
Ryūzaki calmly dissuaded him by placing a hand against the offended one's hand. Once calmed, Ryūzaki lowered his hand to grip the hilt of his sword.
"You're right," he chuckled.
"We have thrown away our honor--but you know..." Suddenly unsheathing his sword as he sprinted forwards shouting
"We never lost our pride!"
Ryūzaki Brought his blade crashing down with full momentum. But Seta seeing it coming from miles away, lifted his sword--sheath and all--blocking the finely edged weapon with his rounded handguard. It rattled and shook as Seta just stood there momentarily and single-handedly held off the offense of the samurai before him.
"Death it will be then; all those you hold so guardedly--take this to the grave--they will die by my sword."
Seta cast Ryūzaki's sword aside with a shrug, a rotation of his shoulder before flipping the steel construction sheath around and careening the end into Ryūzaki's left eye; the gelatinous orb that was his eye erupted, blood poured out of his eye socket.
Then, in a six-tenths of a second Seta tucked the sheath in his sash letting it hang by his side, snuggly before unsheathing the Izanagi, the black steel iconic in its presentation as it didn't gleam or glitter as a steel sword would have. At least, not yet. Still, in those microseconds, he carved a swath through Ryūzaki's side, just under the rib cage. He sundered the man, rending his right kidney, liver, and pancreas all the way up to his diaphragm. The force was further amplified by Seta's left hand 'shoving' the blade deeper and further than it would have gotten having to cleave through muscle, fat, and bone. Tearing the blade out of Ryūzaki's body caused him to spiral wildly around spraying blood before falling to the ground lifelessly. Rain poured down around the men as lightning flooded the skies above followed by a thunderous boom.
The henchman that was on Ryū4zaki's left side shoved the other henchmen away and further to the right. He saw what was coming; death. He drew his sword but there was no time to even block. Seta was upon him like a wolf indeed; ducking and driving the tip of his now backward facing sword, through the lower mandible of his opponent, piercing and pinning his tongue to the roof of his mouth and jutted out the top of his skull. Pulling back and down, the henchmen's face was sheared in two. The structured bones giving way to the sheer cutting power of Izanagi. Brain matter and blood erupted as time sped up to the third henchmen and Seta pivoted out of the way of the shower of crimson fluids. The second man slumped to the ground leaving the third samurai shaking, trembling.
"He's...He's not even human! How can someone move so fast?!" The third samurai screamed inside his own mind.
Performing Chiburi and slinging his blade to the left to flinging the blood from his blade, Seta slowly raised his sword to the level of the third samurai and twisted it. Now it gleamed, now it shone. A sword fit for a demon. The man's eyes visibly shook with terror before glancing to the side. He suddenly realized he was going to die there and his instincts reflexively looked for a way to escape.
"Your move, dead man--You'd better not drag your friends lower by running." Seta's sword gleamed from the blood that ran its length, casting light that made the man's attention.
"Now die."
"N-N-Never!" The samurai screamed before rushing Seta head-on, swinging his sword laterally striking Seta's 'Izanagi'.
The black blade producing sparks as the blades clashed over before Seta gouged the man's lower left side, followed quickly thereafter by a slash to the samurai's left shoulder, shearing the flesh, severing muscle, and cleaving through his left collar bone. The youngest of the three samurai spun, his whole world was a whirlwind dream. He caught himself by plunging his sword into the soils; the blood-stained ground. The earth itself seemed to be steeped in blood. Recollecting himself, he withdrew his sword from that ocean of red. Water ran down his face as though tears were forming and running rampant across his visage. Heart pounding; desperation gripping him with fear coking away what little air that would suffice.
"I... I will not die here! I must not die here!" The man contemplated as he still bled profusely, raising his sword once more, the slender arched blade's tip directed towards Seta who walked nonchalantly towards him.
The last samurai remaining charged with fire in his lungs, bellowing in both pain and anger. Seta's footwork kicked into high gear once again propelling him forwards as though he'd been shot straight from a cannon. His body 'flickered' through the darkness of the evergreen trees of the Stanislavian mountains, and the lightning that streaked across the blackened and bruised skies above. The rain was still pouring down, and as the moon became obscured by the cloudy overcast a deathly silence grew to engulf the surrounding area. Even the insects were silent as the rain continued to turn once powdery residue like earth into a soft boggy area of land that gave way underfoot.
Lashing out, the young, and somewhat inexperienced samurai swung from over his right shoulder in a diagonal angle of approach that, if connected, would have carved a path from Seta's left shoulder down to his right hip. Seeing the path of the glimmering blade, Seta timed the strike precisely and stepped off the side of a tree prior to contact. Performing effortlessly, what was essentially large, sweeping and slanted cartwheel over the blade's edge before landing behind the direction of attack, and adjacent to his attacker.
Seta had brought the full fury of the Izanagi to bear against the blunted backside of his attacker’s sword napping the steel in half before he then 'flipped' his sword around cutting upwards, severing the man's hands at the wrist. He then angled the blade of the Izanagi--the pointed tip--the kissaki--towards the man's throat. Seta thrust his sword forth, plunging the black curved sword through the man's esophagus and windpipe. Remaining in the crouched position he'd originally, he twisted the blade severing his spinal cord at the base of his enemy's skull. Seta slowly retrieved his sword letting the body slump to the ground as he rose slowly to a standing posture from that of one that saw his knees bent and b
Turning the blade with an edge to the left, Seta extended the arm straight from the shoulder, bending his arm at the elbow whilst pointing the sword straight back. He then brought his sword hand to the side of his head; cutting down with his arm extending straight in front, sword pointing diagonally to the ground Seta cast the excess blood to the saturated ground. Seta then rotated his wrist and brought mouth of his scabbard and tip of Izanagi together, directly in front of his navel; forming a single line with the sword and the scabbard. When the sword point was right over the mouth of the scabbard, he sheathed the blade by slowly bringing mouth of scabbard and blade together.
Turning his head to the right slowly, his eyes following his target, the deserter into the abandoned mine. He lifted his now free hand to the whistle made of animal bones and wood that hung around his neck. A simple construction, he blew softly into the device; a resonating vocalization that made a series of bird chirps that echoed softly throughout the forested hills like a passing breeze. The bandits and outlaws hadn't seen him perform the action for fear had gripped their hearts; real or fantasy, Seta had invoked a spirit of bloodlust and brutality that sent them into a frenzy.
Several or more yards away, a wyvern flapped its large leathery wings causing the air to churn creating an updraft keeping it aloft. The beast was unbelievably large, as was the rider atop it holding the reigns. The creature was as though silvery gray like a thick haze or dark brooding storm clouds. She was identifiable by the smooth, shiny segmented 'plates' that formed her beaklike face and a strong chin with a dangling frill some observers say appeared to be a goatee. She also had had a large frill that rose high over her head and continued down the span of her long, sinewy neck. Lengthy spines with dark tips supported the frill; Styrmir also had ear frills with similar spines. Two long, smooth horns with black tips that pointed back and away from the base of the creature's large skull. From afar on a clear day, it looked as though the beast had been sculpted of pure metal and its pupils faded as it grew older until the resembled naught but orbs of mercury. Styrmir carried a scent of rain about her.
The female wyvern, Styrmir, held a maximum wingspan of around 75-feet with the minimum being 30-feet; from snout to tail it was 55-feet long overall. It had a body width of around eight feet wide, a body length of 16-feet, a neck length of 15-feet, and a tail length of 24-feet. The beast's name was Styrmir and as it hovered just above the tree line, nearly imperceptible due to the inclement weather; it listened to the sounds of battle from afar.
When the chirps came to be recognized, the Wyvern lifted and turned its head in the direction that it came from like a hound pointing the way towards its quarry. The faithful mount pointed the way for Sigmund to go forth and aide in the capture of the last of the deserters they'd found that evening. With a loud whistle, Sigmund, Seta's second-in-command, re-directed the gathering of seven myrmidons and three archers towards the direction that the animal call had resonated from.
"Come on boys, the Brigadier is calling for the cavalry!" Sigmund shouted as his wyvern flew overhead then circled back towards the point of origin of the blown whistle.
The majestic beasts flapped its large wings, the air billowing harder with gale-like winds around them as the creature lifted itself higher and flew above, it’s elongated tail drifting along behind, flailing and sapping the tops of trees and sending them crashing down. The animal, Styrmir, came broke free of the tight confinement of the trees her elephantine exhale through her large nostrils, which had ridges and spiked scales as well as the tough and hard textured hide. Sigmund landed atop the grassy knoll above the mine's entrance.
The thunderous sound of swords clattering against the metal and wood scutum shields echoed throughout the wood as the men of the 13th Legion marched ever towards the group of brigands 10 or 15 of the elite shock troops lined up on the other side of the field, their mouths muttering in their war cries as they pounded their shields with their weapons with the exception of the archers who simply nocked their arrows, the deadly bodkin tips used to perforate through the light chain mail that the remaining brigands had stolen from patrols from both sides; Thalian and Stanislav had used to lightly clad themselves in some kind of protective gear.
The weapons that the legionaries carried as they marched forward were long, elegant and semi-crescent; similar to an Ufral scimitar though not quite. It had deep Midorian curves; the tip lent itself back away with a couple of sword catching 'thorns' to bind swords along the back side of the blade. The bottom curved over the knuckles over where the lead hand's fingers were to grip the elongated leather hilt that tapered to a jutting point of steel. The curved almost S-shaped blade was 3 feet long and 1 1/2 wide. Three separate bindings of black steel whereas the backslid into a fitted niche like the bowstring nocking an arrow. The back was tailor wrapped extensively and worked in tandem with the three rings that kept it from sliding free. The soldier's rushed the incline while the wyvern flew overhead before it came down in force.
Trees toppled, some exploded from the impact as the massive creature bounded noisily around until it slid sideways. Seta neither moved nor flinched as the ten-ton animal continue to slide digging talons into the muddy soils to get get some form of traction in the muck and grime of the blood and rain-soaked ground. Luckily, it had worked as the alnars, the digits of the batlike wings also grappled the ground. On its way down it had uprooted several trees; men were sent screaming like children in every which direction as the beast slid to a standstill next to Seta, it's knee structure at Seta's head while its femur began much higher, by four or five feet in length. It was moderate sized wyvern with scaled like plates of shimmering steel. The scales on its face much large, more prominent than the smaller diamond-shaped scales that aligned the rest of its body. It was a slate grey like thick misty clouds; storm clouds that billowed overhead flashing lighting and causing a ruckus with the thunder.
"You're late," Seta stated sternly, gripping Izanagi one-handed, the shaft of the blade face down.
"What would you have done if I had been slain. hmm?" He questioned his captain who tugged the reigns and made the creature coil its tail around Seta, its spiked balled tip thud the ground ready, itching to swing the club which had retracted spikes and 'blades'.
Seta touched the beast's thigh, its hide was unsurprisingly warm despite being thoroughly saturated in rainwater, especially where the crevices were the rain flowed down the sides of its belly. The wyvern snorted as if to say "Only my rider touches me." But at the same time the beast knew, it sensed Seta's hunter-esque spirit and to it, this made her a worth predator. Thought it would always recognize its master, it sensed something inherent violent and volatile about Seta.
"I'd be getting a promotion?" The pompous ass of a man answered, lifting his visor to spit out a crinkled cigarette, the embers still glowing softly, but not for long as it dove into a puddle of mud.
"Heh. Hardly. You're barely worth the captain rank. The only reason you got it was because no one could beat you except myself and the higher-ups, of course." Seta answered coldly, never taking his eyes off the mine's entrance. "Do you think you can hold them off? The last deserter fled into that cave there." Seta questioned.
"Who the hell do you think you're talking to? They don't call me Sigmund Giantsbane for nothing!" Sigmund retrieved his polearm, a halberd of considerable size.
The girth of the head made it extremely top heavy. Seta couldn't even lift it, nor could five men--now when they all pitched in the weapon was able to be picked up. Only Sigmund due to his tall, broad-shouldered build could lift that massive weapon and swing it like it were effortlessly as he could. The man had power in spades and pain threshold beyond the normal man to match, but Seta had speed, dexterity, precision, as well as being simply nimble and acrobatic. He had the stamina to run for dozens of miles without stopping. His heart rate would skyrocket while in his unyielding his pace. The heavily armored knight patted the Wyvern side as he slung the halberd with a chipped edge over one shoulder, it also bared a long spike at the top and what appeared to be a pickaxe of some sort on the backside.
"Come on Atorix, we got work to do!" The wyvern hissed excitedly."That's right buddy, you get to let loose--but don't you go swing that tail around without warning! You cracked some ribs. I'm lucky that the spikes didn't gouge my armor too deep. It's about laid me open." The wyvern leaned its head down and nuzzled into Sigmund who petted the creature. Wyverns had always been seen as a status quo in the inner circles, and the bonds they seemed to make had always intrigued and entranced Seta. He wondered what kind, if any would have him, be like to him what he was witnessing right then.
"Are you done, or should I just go on ahead?" Seta questioned a brow raised.
"Yeah, yeah, I'm going. Atorix just wanted some affection before this massacre happens, it's a tradition!" Sigmund threw up his arms. Then he whistled and the Wyvern looked like an attentive dog and lumbered closer to the massive knight.
"Let's give'em hell!" The rider rose his halberd
"No survivors for this these spineless heathens!" He then roared.
When Sigmund rose the serrated ax head, the draconian responded letting out an ear-splitting bone-chilling roar. By this point, Seta was quietly lurking in the shadow of the beast that blotted out the moonlight glimmers. As it rose its tail tipped with a sphere that came apart like a machine and revealed large, edged spikes that were nothing to say of the tree stump sized club they extended from. Seta quickly and daringly ran beneath the reptiles bipedal lags just as it rotated its entire body, spinning in such a manner it skewered one man before mashing him against a tree before sweeping back around and smashing another man into the ground---with several resounding 'thuds'. Bones were most definitely shattered and ligaments torn asunder.
Seta had it the ground and rolled over one shoulder to run towards the cave's mouth. He slew any who dared interfere quick drawing cuts of Izanagi. Sigmund was thoroughly enjoying the wholesale slaughter; bored to his wits end patrolling the skies above along the border. His once shimmering armor depicting a wolve's head was now saturated in a thick viscous fluid called blood. It matched his helms 'tail' and the handle wrap to absorb most of the blood. Sigmund would impale his opponents with the spear-like tip of the head and then rear the ax back for a downward stroke cleaving the bandit's head and brain into halves. Once the man would drop to his knees, lobotomized thoroughly, Sigmund planed a massive metal boot to the man's chest, sawing his way through bone and muscle alike until the ax head was free.
Seta turned around just as soon as one more sprang from the trees to force his short sword in between the gaps of Sigmund's armor. He soon realized there was not only a chain shirt but a gambeson they're to protect him in such cases. Seta moved to assist but the moment that Sigmund felt the strike to his armpit, he turned to leave the ax head in another victim's scalp, stared ominously at the attacker before grabbing him off the ground, kicking and thrashing. A quick twist, a forceful tug, and the man neck was snapped like dead wood. He tossed the body elsewhere and returned to ripping through his former opponents head. No longer feeling needed as there was a rampaging Wyvern and perhaps more terrifying a knight who used to be an executioner, so beheading for him with something as unwieldy as that halberd was like Seta practicing kata with his bokken.
Rushing inside, the tunnel was dark and barely lit. It was all the more the further he went in as if someone had blown out the candles. He came to a clearing with several gateways or openings, but the clearing was wide enough to do one-on-one combat in. His heart was thudding from his hastened pace, but, after several deep breaths he calmed the rhythm down to a dull ache as he concentrated on his other senses; taste, smelling, hearing, feeling. He felt the wind billow down the long corridor he entered from, he tasted the stale air, he smelled sweat and blood and then he felt it a sudden 'whoosh' of movement. Sidestepping quickly, barely evading the spear thrust towards his head. In an instant, a momentary split second, Seta then brought his sword down and cleaved the fastened head clean from the haft of the spear leaving a perfectly symmetrical round piece of wood. It was now a staff if nothing else.
Though he could not see his opponent for he concealed himself well. However, moving counter-clockwise he maneuvered the man impeccably right where he needed him. He was unassumingly in line with the partial lit hallway. Now Seta could see the deserter's silhouette. Seta assumed Jodan Kamae stance; a stance with which the sword is overhead and pointing diagonally back. Another lung to Seta's throat saw the swordsman take immediate action, splitting the haft long ways and cutting both thumbs before stopping as he felt the blade start to carve its way into the man's collar bone. The man yelped and screamed, holding the two severed thumbs in his hands he became a sobbing mess of a human being.
Bringing the mouth of scabbard and middle of the hilt of blade together directly in front of the navel, he slid back of the blade to the right over the semicircle formed by thumb and forefinger while sliding the scabbard back into the sash. He then formed a single line with sword and scabbard when the sword point is right over the mouth of the scabbard. Seta sheathing the blade by lowly bringing mouth of scabbard and blade together. His fingers trailed along the blade to wash off as much blood as possible from the blade as it slowly drew to a close.
"Have some modicum of dignity and take your defeat like a man. You're still alive--for now, that's more than I could say for you roving band of murderers and thieves out there." There was a coldness to his voice that made the air seem to drop in temperature as Seta spoke. He also had an unshakeable will and a presence that the man hadn't seen until the Lord Commander Tercsh would often be akin to. "Come," He grabbed the man up by his shoulders. He was a sturdy man to be sure but he was no Sigmund. This guy felt like pebbles compared to boulders.
"Where are we going?!" The man asked afraid of the answer.
"To your trial. I didn't cut your shoulder too badly, you'll live through a grueling forced march of 18 miles a day. That's how miles my men walk regularly when not searching for people like you." Seta told him with no remorse.
"My trial!? But they'll kill me! You mine as well kill me here and now!" The man argued even as he was being laced with a rope around the wrists: double knotted so escape was out of the question.
"Maybe they will--you did desert your post and hid out the marauders and pillagers--good riddance I say," Seta responded callously.
"Men who disgrace the uniform and only pay homage to themselves are worse than scum." Seta continued to scold the man.
"But, maybe just maybe, they'll let you off. You can't hold a sword in either hand anymore--you're no threat to anyone anymore." Seta said justly thus and walked him down the hall where he was met with ten men with obsidian colored tower shields with a large bird emblazoned on its metallic front; they covered one other in a tightnit, cohesive manner.
The shields were large, cumbersome but they had grown accustomed to the weight. They were well-built fine Stanislavian men. It was 'standard' despite being so large. It covered each man from their shoulders to the tops of their feet. They also had ready their glimmering steel blades; curved wicked like a falchion. Along the backside were 'hooks' or 'thorns' to catch glancing blows and parries. It had a downward that came out over the knuckles of the hand with a serrated edge bound by three black iron rings that helped bind the weapons on edge to the hilt of the sword could be wielded two-handedly or single-handedly. The pommel had a claw-like jutting point.
"Sir! its you!" They lowered their guard slacking a bit as their tensions eased. Seta pushed the man forward into the arms of the waiting guards.
"Tend to his fingers, no meals for any of the deserters for tonight--ten lashes for each except him." Seta paused.
" Bullwhip." He then approached the soldier who had doubted him.
"What's your name soldier?" He asked, straightening the young man's segmented plate mail. Straightening the folds of the shoulder pauldrons.
"Calen, Sir." The man responded before Seta tilted his head thoughtfully.
"Calen, let me give you a bit of advice, I've learned."
"Yes sir, anything Sir!" The soldier stated enthusiastically.
Seta leaned in past his ear, looking forwards arm draped over the young man's chest, a dagger he'd taken from the soldier himself the pointed tip bearing down against the protruding vertebrae at the base of the young man's nape.
"You really ought to be careful of what equipment you carry--you may just need to fight it someday. Learn the ins and outs of your weapons and shield and you'll easily be prepared for anything." Seta handed the man back his dagger. Beads of cold sweat already forming at his brown.
"Oh, and one more thing--don't doubt me. If I am hard on you it's because it is necessary. If I wasn't hard on you then you wouldn't be so effective as a team."
"Y-y-yes, sir!" He raised his fist to his chest in salute to Seta.
With a slight nod of acknowledgment, Seta grasped two fingers and sauntered away towards the campfire where the six captives had their arms bound to pieces of wood with two soldiers at either holding and supporting the lumber. Sigmund was undoubtedly looking towards this. His sadist nature was never more evident than when he gave out lashings. In the meaty fist of Sigmund's hand, he bore a nine-foot cattle whip he dropped the eight-foot tassel gripped the foot long knotted handle. He drew the lash back quickly before arching it forwards on the first deserter. One Stanislav soldier offered the man something to bite down on but with a shake of Seta's head, and his cold eyes shining, the soldier backed away.
Seta stood there as each man after the next hollered, screamed and writhed as their skin was split apart from the velocity and inertia of the tassles striking bare exposed skin leaving strips of carmine. It wasn't a cat of nine, but the whip worked efficiently sewing the seeds of despair. The final man, however, clenched his jaw shut, teeth biting into the soft tissues of the tongue before a might hand gripped both sides of the man's jaw. Fearful eyes looked up as the lashes kept coming.
"Five more--just for trying to take a coward's way out. You'll learn one way or another you'll meet your maker--I'll assure you of that." Sigmund swung the whip an additional five times as Seta held the man's mouth agape, his other hand tucked neatly behind his back.
Seta's eyes never moved nor waivered from the pupils of the condemned as he teared up and began seething trying to fight back the pain.
Once the lashes had been dealt, the backs of the six men looking more or less like raw beef and the whip coated in blood, a mixture of the convicted. Releasing the man's jaw, and walked in a slow, relaxed manner, without hurry or effort before stopping in front of the seven men.
"You will have no dinner tonight; tomorrow you will. We will be marching to Thalia's capital where you will meet your judgment. Pray God is merciful for I am not. And if anyone is to execute you, it'll be me. I hunted you down for days, to find you in hovels, huts--caves! Full of thieves and brigands! The dredges of society! The very ones you were sworn to defend against and prosecute to the fullest extent of Stanlavian law! Seeing men who wore the colors of law-abiding citizens--some of you still do--sickens and disgusts me. So pray to whatever God you find solace--because tomorrow we march towards your judgment." The glimmer of his silver eyes with gold flecks burned with intensity. The fires of a thousand suns couldn't be it's equal