The Shadow Wind, the RP that started more than a year ago

[Shadow_Paladin]

Krag-Tal surveyed the amassed army standing before the city and considered the options. Even with the Camonna Tong assisting their troops and mercenaries, the Empire would barely be able to storm a well-defended position with such numbers. The Imperials had to have some trick they'd rely on. Oh, but we have tricks too. Krag-Tal thought fiendishly. Time to go stir the hornet's nest a bit, I think.

He turned toward the low-rising wall to his right and stepped up on top next to the block set atop it. Glen shot him a puzzled look. "Where are you going?" he inquired.
"Oh, just playing the snake in the grass for a bit."
Glen cocked his head and looked confused, then his face brightened into a grin. "I like it. I'll stay here and keep things under wraps for now."

Krag-Tal nodded and hopped down into the waiting canal boat. There was no driver this time, as they'd all fled to the safety of the temple, so Krag-Tal was left to steer on his own. He steered the low boat around to the eastern side of the city, where he found a wooden ramp that the drivers used to escort their passengers up and over the canal walls. Climbing out of the boat, he headed up the ramp and peered over the top of the wall. It was a surprising thing; the Empire still hadn't totally surrounded the city yet. Krag-Tal wondered if they would even bother.

He stepped off the ramp and jogged a wide arc around the army to avoid being seen coming toward it. His arc took him to the back of the troops waiting in front of the Foreign canon. His armor was used enough to make it look like he belonged there, but he'd have to avoid using his sword; most mercenaries weren't successful enough to wield ebony blades. He straightened up and adopted a confident sauntering gait common with overconfident mercs and bounty hunters. All right, let's see what kind of trouble we can cause. Hmm. As he pushed his way through the ranks, he got a couple of questioning looks, but most of the troops didn't care one way or the other. He spotted a couple of Imperials among a group of mercenaries and what looked like common bandits. Why in the hell would the Empire ever hire bandits? He wondered. Surely they're not that hard up for help. The Imperials clearly weren't happy with their position and apparently downgraded status. One looked positively offended he had to fight alongside some of the lowlifes that were assembled there. Perfect. Krag-Tal thought with a grin.

He continued to push his way through and stopped next to the Imperial. "Really horrible group we got here, eh?" The Imperial looked at him quizzically.
"Why would you care?" he demanded, "it's not like the rest of you lot cares about it. As long as you're getting paid, right?"
Krag-Tal chuckled and replied, "I'm not quite like the rest of the fools out here. I used to be in the Legion too. And believe me, this is offensive to me too."
The Imperial glared at the assembled hirelings and nodded at Krag-Tal.
"I wish I could run 'em all through right now, but commander's orders are we have to use them to help us."
"You mean you can't start with a couple? I mean, that guy right over there killed three Legionnaires just last month. Look at 'im." Krag-Tal said, gesturing to a surly looking Redguard a handful of paces away. The Imperial's blood was clearly beginning to reach the boiling point. Krag-Tal smiled innerly and said, "Just take him out during the fight, nobody will even notice."
The Imperial smiled and nodded. "I'll work on it. I hate working with these scum. Maybe if we get rid of enough of them the rest will run for it and we can finish this like real troopers."
"That's the spirit."
Krag-Tal turned and pushed his way back through the crowd, with a grin on his face. That takes care of that little numerical problem. he said to himself and sauntered back over to the back of the amassed troops to make good his escape.

[El Stormo]

It was the most peculiar sensation. As if she was in control of her actions, but not of her will. As if she couldn't decide what to do, but was perfectly free in deciding how to do it. And the thing on her head hurt like the Hells. She'd touched it, to find out what it was, and it seemed to be some kind of metal circlet, but the reason it hurt so bad was because big spikes jutted from it, which were stuck deep into the skin of her head. Dried blood stuck to her forehead and caked on her eyelids, and the hair on the back of her head was full of caked blood as well. When she'd tried to pull it off, the skin on her forehead had shrieked in pain and fresh blood had run in her eyes. She hadn't been able to do anything except clutch her head for half an hour.

And now she stood in the cold morning air, dressed in ill-fitting leather armour that had been given to them, grudgingly, by the Imperial prison keepers. She had no illusions about the reason they had gotten armour - they'd only gotten it so they stood a chance of surviving the hail of arrows that was sure to be launched at them, so that they'd be useful for a little longer. The cold itself didn't bother her much. The throbbing, swollen skin on her head, however, was agony.

She knew that she would charge the defenders' position when given the order. The thing on her head would take care of it. And she also knew the thing on her head would let her decide just how to fight, but it would be sure to pick her targets for her.

A fight broke out to her left, but she ignored it. Not because she wanted to, but because the circlet told her she wanted to. Same reason she hadn't looked next to her to see how her fellow prisoners were doing. She wanted to know, but it didn't want her to want.



The Sherriff waded into the fight, cursing and swearing. Apparently some of the scum had found a way to anger the Legionaries next to them, and now they were looking to take a bite out of eachother. Three thugs already lay dead, and one Imperial was being dragged off by his comrades, screaming and leaving a trail of blood behind. When one of the scum tried to give the screaming Imperial another stab, the Sherriff brought the flat of his enormous two-handed blade down on his skull. He went down without a sound.

"Anyone else want a fight?!" he bellowed to the Camonna thugs. "This time it won't be the flat side that has a chat with your skull!"
The Camonna thieves grudgingly retreated.

"It's time, sir," the general whispered into the Sherriff's ear.
"Not just yet," the Sherriff replied. "We're still waiting for our reinforcements."
"Reinforcements, sir?"
The Sherriff gave a hint of a smile. "You'll see. In the meantime, send some prisoners, and some Camonna scum at them. That way we'll have something to watch."
"Are you sure about those prisoners, sir?"
The Sherriff nodded with a creepy smile. "Perfectly sure. Those Slave Circlets will make sure they fight the way their consciences tell them."
"Very well, sir."

The general plodded off to the assembled army and bellowed an order to the Camonna Tong superior. The superior, in turn, yelled at his ragtag army, and the entire Camonna Tong host rolled toward the bridge the defenders so desperately needed to keep free of enemies. At the same time, the prisoners, driven by their circlets, charged onward, unwillingly eager to kill whatever stood in their way.

The first volley of arrows zipped into the lines of the Camonna and prisoners, and more than half of them screamed and fell, some plummetting down to the riverbank below and bursting their skulls on the stones. The prisoner charging before Kayla took an arrow in the groin and fell, screeching. The Camonna thugs howled and fell back, and the prisoners' circlets realized that falling back was the best thing to do as well. Kayla was nearly trampled by the retreating horde.

The Sherriff smiled. "Sir," the general asked him. "Orders?"
"Our reinforcements have arrived. Storm their position with everything we've got.
The general nodded.

As the Imperials prepared to charge, the defenders caught a glimpse of the 'reinforcements' the Camonna Tong had had hidden. Along with the others, Glen felt his stomach clench when he saw them. The shambled toward the rest of the army, silent, with faces that had no expression on them. Most of the faces didn't even have eyes anymore. They were rotting, decomposing horrors. Many of them still had earth clinging to them.

"By the Tribunal," the man next to Glen breathed, touching an Almsivi pendant. "Could they really be this callous?"
"You bet," Glen said. "They must have raised the entire south of Vvardenfell."
The dead numbered so many that any hope Glen had of living through this day was soundlessly shattered.

The dead assembled in a large troop next to the Imperials. Most of the legionaries shifted in unease and disgust. The dead didn't mind. Their faces were blank, emotionless, lifeless.

Except for one. Staring at the bulwark, the one remaining eye seething with hatred, her dirty platinum blonde hair flapping in the wind against her rotten skin, the captain of the Undead stood.

Glen's knees buckled and he had to grab the shoulder of the man standing next to him to keep from falling.
"Oh dear God," he breathed. "They've raised Lysanna."

[El Stormo]

With a roar, the entire army surged forward. The long ladders clattered down to create extra bridges, and the Camonna were the lucky ones who got to cross them first. Snatching up a hatchet, Glen hacked away at the supports of the ladder, but as the attackers were about halfway, he knew that it was no use. Realizing he wouldn't be able to chop through the wood in time, he swung the hatchet and let it go, so it flew end over end and smashed into the skull of the first attacker crawling across the ladder. The second and third were wiped off the ladder by arrow fire, but the fourth half-leapt onto the battlement. The other ladders fared pretty much the same way, the first attackers being repelled, but the ones after them getting a foothold.

Glen roared and swung his katana at the agile Camonna that had managed to cross the gap first. He was still off-balance from the leap he'd taken, and he could only make a clumsy attempt at dodging. Glen's sword slashed across his neck, and his backhanded swing caught the attacker's skull with a dull thunk. As he fell, Glen saw the projectile speeding toward him, and he barely had time to throw himself to the ground before the ballista bolt flew past, impaling the man behind him.

From his position on the ground, Glen slashed the achilles tendon of the next attacker. He screamed and fell over backward, over the battlements and down to the ground, a hundred metres below.

In the meantime, the dead were slowly crossing the bridge. Most of them had become pincushions already, but the arrows did not stop them, and the Dunmer in charge of the archers desperately yelled at his men to stop firing at the undead. In a flash, a fireball leapt from the hands of one of the Ordinators, and several undead were torched where they stood, their burning forms taking several more steps forward before silently crashing down and being consumed by the fire.

Glen's mouth fell open in amazement as he saw an entire regiment of Imperials bellowing and charging straight into the flanks of the Camonna Tong. The Camonna were caught by surprise and tried to defend themselves, but the Imperials crashed over them like a tidal wave. At the edge of the fight, he saw Krag-Tal quickly making his escape. Damn lizard had just made things a lot less hopeless. He wondered what Krag-Tal had done to make those Imperials abandon their battle plans and charge at those Camonna, but he realized he'd probably never know.

He regained his footing, and as he did so, an Argonian somersaulted from the ladder he'd been climbing and landed right in front of Glen, swinging his halberd so quickly that Glen could barely dodge it. The head butt however, did connect, and brightly coloured stars exploded before Glen's eyes. "You've gotten slow, Glen," the Argonian gravelled. When Glen opened his eyes, he saw that the Argonian's left eye was covered by a black headband. He opened his mouth to say, "Long time no see, Horn," but before he could speak, the halberd came down again, and sparks struck from the blade as Glen's katana parried the blow.




Kayla wept as her knife unerringly found the chest of one of the defenders. It was a strange sight. She fought with the conviction of a berserker, but her face was contorted in a weeping hysteria. A blade passed over her head, and her hand thrust out, catching her attacker below the chin. Tears streamed down her face as the woman that had swung her sword at her gurgled and spasmed, with Kayla's blade in her brain.

Most of the prisoners had been killed straight away. Many of them hadn't been fighters, but rather common thieves, arsonists, vandals and swindlers. They hadn't stood a chance. Even the added skill bestowed by the Slave Circlets hadn't managed to keep them alive. But no one minded. They were, after all, meat shields. A collapsing Imperial soldier fell on top of her, his weight slamming into the Slave Circlet on her head. She screamed in pain, and blackness skittered into the edge of her vision. Her body was numb, paralyzed by the pain. She groaned and sobbed as she tried to get up, and from where she lay, she suddenly saw something below the main bridge. It looked like a human, a woman, but it hung on the underside of the bridge, scuttling across like a spider. A sword with a green blade was strapped to the shape's back.

[Shadow_Paladin]

OOC: After what, 5 months I finally decide to post? EPIC FAIL. Due to writer's block of obscene proportions, finishing school, and starting a new job, I haven't had much time. So, apologies to my co-author.

Kag-Tal sprinted away from the surging army, which was now slowly degrading into not much more than an organized riot, he observed, and headed back towards his canal boat. As he shoved past a few stragglers and vaulted over a few corpses, he spied the small craft sitting at its dock where he'd left it, but it appeared he had company.

Krag-Tal skidded to a halt in front of a massive, blond-haired (aren't they all?) Nord and a scruffy-looking, yet dangerous nonetheless, Khajiit. Both thugs were apparently attempting to cash in on his abandoned vessel (if it could be called that) and sneak around the fight. "Going somewhere, gentlemen?" he called out to them. They whirled in unison, the Nord's face carried the blank look of surprise, while the Khajiit merely glared at Krag-Tal. "I could be mistaken, but I believe that's my boat you're stealing." Krag-Tal continued.

The Nord spat on the ground and unsheathed a wicked-looking dagger. "YOUR boat?" he rasped, "No, I think this is our boat. And I think you'll be leaving shortly."

"Oh, I didn't realize that was your boat. Seeing as how it's the only one left on this side of the canal." The Argonian gave a gravelly chuckle and settled into his pre-combat mental routines, sizing up his opponents. The Nord was big, strong, and probably slow, and the Khajiit was probably as frail as the rest of em. "Look, why don't you boys run along and play elsewhere so the grown-ups can get our work done?"

The Nord was clearly getting angrier by the minute. "We're taking that boat and you'd best run along before I gut you." He grinned wickedly. "Little bastard like you would squeal real good."

The Khajiit pulled matching knives out of a concealed pocket within his vest and he and the Nord advanced upon Krag-Tal's position. Krag-Tal sighed the sigh a parent makes when a child misbehaves and drew his ebony longsword. Stupid, typical thieves, he thought grimly. The Nord charged toward Krag-Tal with the obvious intent of killing him on the first pass and lunged with the wicked-looking dagger aimed at the Argonian's neck. Had the blow connected, Krag-Tal figured he'd probably have about 15 seconds to live before his jugular bled out, but he was gone long before the blade was upon him, neatly sidestepping the rushing Nord's ungainly stab. His leg snapped out in a vicious kick that slammed his armored boot heel into the man's midriff, causing the Nord to stumble out of his reckless charge with a surprised woof of escaped air.

The Khajiit was a little more careful and moved in toward Krag-Tal, thrusting both knives simultaneously at the Argonian's back. The ebony blade in Krag-Tal's hand shot up and parried the blow, and he spun to face his second assailant, dropping into a defensive stance with a low grip for parrying quick strikes. The Khajiit thug circled around to Krag-Tal's left and the knife in his right hand flashed, causing Krag-Tal to parry the strike aimed at his chest. He parried the follow-up from the offhand and dodged out of a third swing, though the blade knicked his arm on the way. The Khajiit sneered at the sight of a tiny bit of blood flying away from the wounded arm and Krag-Tal glared at the thug. So you wanna get fancy, huh? he thought. Let's see you out-fancy this. Krag-Tal parried one more blow with his blade arm, then quickly backpedaled a step, causing the Khajiit to lunge a bit, opening up his defense for a split second. Krag-Tal immediately took advantage of this and planted his offhand fist in the Khajiit's face, smashing the cat's nose and splitting his lip down the middle. Obviously taken by surprise, the Khajiit staggered back from the blow, spitting out blood and a dislodged tooth onto the dock.

The massive Nord had long since recovered from his idiotic charge and was now moving back to Krag-Tal, hoping to get in close to grapple him down and use his superior strength to win this fight. Krag-Tal swung high, but the Nord was quicker than he looked and ducked under the blow. He parried a follow-up downward slice on his dagger's large hilt and tackled Krag-Tal to the ground. Aiming the dagger at the Argonian's throat, he thrust down as hard as he could. Krag-Tal's hand instantly dropped his blade and both hands shot up to grab the man's huge wrist. At this point, most people the thug had dealt with would probably be panicking, but Krag-Tal was a trained soldier, and calmly held back the dagger as best as he could while assessing the options. As the blade's tip moved ever closer to his neck, Krag-Tal suddenly jabbed his right thumb into the Nord's wrist, bruising the tendon. The grip on the dagger lessened for an instant, and Krag-Tal used that to divert the blade and brought his knee up into the man's groin. The Nord's eyes bulged and he grunted with the sudden agony. Krag-Tal threw his attacker off and re-gathered his blade.

The Khajiit settled himself again and, hissing with rage, lashed out at Krag-Tal with a flurry of strikes aimed at any opening he could find. Krag-Tal parried most of what he could, dodging a few here and there, and forced the thug back into his own defense with long, arcing swings. The Nord made one final attempt to skewer the Argonian, but Krag-Tal quickly dove out of the man's path, executed a somewhat sloppy shoulder roll and thrust his blade into the thug's chest. The Nord collapsed onto the deck with a gasp. The Khajiit took advantage of Krag-Tal's momentary distraction and managed a swing that again caught Krag-Tal's exposed arm, sending blood and bits of torn scales into the air between them. Shutting out the pain, Krag-Tal battered back the Khajiit's defense and took one final swing that caught the thug on the right hip and opened up a nasty wound up to his left shoulder. The Khajiit reeled back, tripped over the dock-post and tumbled into the canal, dead before he hit the water.

Panting slightly, Krag-Tal sheathed his blade and hopped down into the canal boat. He untied the small craft and paddled his way back to the main fight.

[El Stormo]

"Why are all those zombies so slow?!" Glen yelled out at Alfairin, who was casting spells on the battlement a few meters below them. Most of the zombies shuffled along at a pace that would have been ludicrous if the situation wasn't so terrible. A few of them, about one for every fifty, however, seemed to possess an incredible agility and strength, skittering up walls and leaping over opstacles with superhuman speed.
"They're mindless!" Alfairin yelled back. "They're too stupid to be fast, or to feel pain!"
Glen flexed back to alow the head of his enemy's mace to swing through the air before him, instead of into his head. His foot shot out in a hard kick, and the mace-wielder was knocked backwards on his ass.
"What about the fast ones?" He yelled, taking advantage of the few seconds his kick had gained him.
"They're the greater variant! They get that way because they were raised when they still had feelings of vengeance and hatred trapped in them from when they died!"

Glen saw his katana stab the air above his enemy, and cursed when the weapon wedged itself into the mortar between the stones of the wall behind his adversary. The other gave a triumphant cry, and swung his mace at Glen. The head went too fast to dodge, and all Glen could do was raise his arms protectively. But just as the mace struck his forearms, one of the Ordinators tackled Glen's assailant to the ground. The blow from the mace still knocked Glen to the ground, and his arms screamed with pain, the bones hopefully bruised, but probably broken.

Realizing he'd get slaughtered without a weapon or the use of his arms, Glen scuttled backwards over the ground, between the legs of fighting soldiers. His arms screeched in pain whenever he put his weight on them, but better hurt than dead. When he'd crawled far enough back, he felt his right arm with his less hurt left hand, and he muttered a thankyou to no one in specific when he realized his arms weren't broken.

Glen got to his feet, and as he did so, a white-haired creature launched itself through the ranks of the fighting soldiers and crashed into Glen, knocking him down once more. Hands like iron vices clamped around his throat, shutting off his windpipe. Glen opened his eyes and saw her sitting on top of him. The eye that remained was a wrinkeled, yellow ball, and though it had shrunk and gotten too small for its socket, its blue iris was still looking straight at him. Lysanna's face was contorted in a horrid, insane grin. Her teeth were brown headstones in her rotten mouth, and her nose had been eaten off by scavengers, leaving only a large hole in the center of her face. Her once-beautiful platinum hair was dirty and stuck to her face. But the worst was the sticky, slimy pus hanging out of the hole where her other eye had been. A broken arrow shaft still stuck out of it.

Glen clawed at her arms, but the blow from the mace had taken all the strength out of his hands, and so he could only manage feeble tugs. Lysanna's corpse's grin widened and she brought her face closer to his. What little air Glen could still pull into his lungs turned into fetid, stinking rot. The corpse's jaws went apart and a rasping sound came out of her mouth. "Liiiike thaaaaat...?"
Glen croaked in response. His strength was rapidly draining away. Suddenly the corpse got up, lifting him up by the throat with incredible strength. The grip remained iron, and Glen's lungs expelled the little air they had in them when he slammed into the wall behind him.

Glen kicked at the shins of the corpse holding him, although he knew that had no effect. Lysanna's rotten face again came closer. "Baaassstarrrd!" the decaying mouth scratched out. Then she rammed her pelvis into his, so hard his balls screamed in pain. She pulled back and rammed again, and again. "Wanted! Me! Didn't! You?!" she ground out, a word for every thrust. "Wanted! To! Fuck! Me!"
Glen kept kicking and clawing, but it was no use. The pressure in his brain rose to the point that he thought his head would burst. Lysanna thrust her dead hips into him again. "I! Know! You! Did!" Glen tried to pull his pelvis back, but she just kept ramming in an obscene frenzy. "Still! Want! Me! Now?!"





A few feet further, Kayla Ashwood's eyes skimmed across the battlefield, and locked on the sight of Glen being throttled by the corpse of the dead woman she'd tried to rob, all those days ago. The slave circlet tried to pull her eyes away, but instead she raised her right hand over her head, closed her fingers around the pointed slave circlet clawed into her flesh, and pulled as hard as she could.