[Sunberth] Raid

[Harman Dayis]

Raid
21st Of Summer

The camp was quiet. Harman's chest rose and fell in a harmonious manner, and Champion, his dog, breathed easy off to the side of the sixteen year old's bedroll.

The mercenary had been traveling with Byron's slave trading caravan for three days now. However, the tents that were just outside Harman's were not just those of his fellow caravan guards and of the financier of the trip.

While making their way to Zeltiva the day prior, the caravan had discovered very fresh footprints, that led in the direction of the same route that they were forced to take due to the nature of their current localities terrain. The prints had proven to be those of a bandit raiding party, when said brigands had ambushed Byron's caravan later that evening.

At first Harman, the other mercenaries, and even Byron had been ready to defend themselves. As fate would have it, though, they didn't have to. One of the men Byron had hired, a dual wielding warrior named Jacs, recognized the leader of the approaching bandit party, at the last moment. Thanks to Jacs, and his lucky friendship with the brigand's leader, the slavers and the bandits had quickly decided not to harm one another. James, which turned out to be the name of Jacs' friend, even went so far as to invite Byron's party back to his camp when Jacs alone refused to stay behind with him.

Byron, Harman, Jacs, and the rest of the mercenaries had followed James back to his camp for the night, and had supped with him and his men. Harman had been surprised by the level of civility and sophistication the bandits - who had previously, presumably been intent on killing, robbing, and maiming him - were capable of being.

Champion shifted beside Harman. At first, the dog simply stirred by his master's side, as if having an unpleasant dream. Then however, the Deerstalker's head shot off of Harman's leg suddenly. The dog perked his one ear and began to bark violently.

Harman grumbled.

"Champ, shut up," he mumbled.

The dog ignored the boxer and stood up, and only intensified his barking. The dog's fury was directed towards the flap of the tent.

Harman swatted at the dog sleepily with his hand that was nearest to Champion, but was unable to quiet him. Harman finall released another low grumble, and then opened his sticky eyes.

The boxer blinked for a moment, until he could make Champion out through the darkness of the tent.

He began to say something, when sounds besides his dog's ruckus began to filter in through the barking, and to his ears.

There was screaming outside, he realized, and something else that sounded like buffeted winds.

Harman rubbed his eyes with his gauntlet wearing hands. He still had his leather armor on, and his thin, glove-like studded gauntlets. In a purposeful manner, he propped himself up and began to feel around his tent for his shield.

Something's going on out there, he inferred from the growing screaming outside his tent.

The fighter found the small, metal buckler he'd been searching for, off to the leftmost corner of his tent. Methodically, he strapped the minuscule shield to his forearm.

Series So Far, And Permissions :

[Sunberth] Securing The Mark
[Sunberth] And Out We Go, Into Misadventure
[Sunberth] And Out We Go, Into Misadventure: Part II
[Sunberth] Slavers And Brigands
A Little ExplanationI checked with Anarkhos, before I threw these npcs together. We're all good on that front.

[Harman Dayis]

Raid
21st Of Summer

Harman peaked through the front of his tent, by slowly and carefully parting the canvas flaps there. He looked out into everything that the glow of the fire, that was in the middle of the circle of tents, wreathed in its light.

The boxer's eyes jumped sporadically between the shuffling, weapon wielding shapes for a moment. Harman's gaze began to focus more on a few decently illuminated pockets of conflict, as the fog of sleep began to clear from his mind.

Slowly, he began to put together what was happening. Obviously, the camp was under attack. Who was attacking it, though?

The boxer squinted into the darkness for another moment. The sound of whipping winds once more entered his minds, and then he saw them. His comrades were fighting winged creatures out in the darkness.

"Stay!" Harman quietly snapped back to his dog, who was still in the tent, but was trying to poke his head through the flaps with Harman. "I mean it, Champion."

He didn't want to the dog getting hurt; especially since he wasn't so sure he himself wouldn't be. His heart began to convulse in his chest, as he stepped from the tent.

All around him, he saw men fighting the Zith. Harman didn't recognize the bat like creatures for what they were, but could tell they were obviously a threat. He saw that some of his fellow humans were fighting near the fire - allowing him to truly catch glimpses of the monstrous beings that they were combating - and that some of the mercenaries and brigands were off in the shadows.

What are they doing? He thought. Harman was scared, but what really frightened him were the crumpled, body shaped stoops that he thought he saw. There were Zith moving over the camp, out of the trees, and around the fire; worst of all was the fact that there were a lot of them. Harman lost count when he quickly tried to estimate the bestial race's numbers.

He took a breath, trying to figure out how he could help. However, the more he quickly accessed his outnumbered, disjointed, and unorganized allies, the more he realized that there was no helping them succeed. The realization that the mercenaries and bandits would all be picked off, one by one, group by group, hit Harman. They couldn't be saved while they were utilizing their current tactics, he mused.

"Jacs!" Harman stepped from his tent, and called to a man that he saw and recognized.

Jacs was fighting with two other men, in a band nearest to the fire in the middle of the camp. Harman watched the man slash at a Zith that had just landed off to his left. Jacs' attack may have cut the Zith, or it may have missed, Harman didn't see. The boxer did watch Jacs recover from his attack to parry away the creature's claws, with one of his axe's shining edges.

The warrior didn't bother to glance towards Harman. The boxer didn't know if the man was ignoring him because he was fighting for his life, or if he hadn't heard his call at all.

Harman took a running step towards the mercenary that he had called to, and then he took another. Champion soon followed his master out of the tent, despite being told to stay put inside the canvas shelter.

After Harman and his dog had begun to close the short distance between their location and that of Jacs' war band's, Champion let out a loud bark into the sky. Realizing that his companion was with him, Harman began to glance towards where the dog had barked.

"I told you to sta-," he started to berate his dog, before he caught sight of the club hurtling towards his brow and thus cut off his own words.

The boxer held up right forearm, and attempted to put his buckler between himself and the weapon that was coming towards him from the sky. The club impacted, with a dull echo of pinging metal, on Harman's shield.

The boxer's back arched under the strain of bracing himself against the downward blow. As he blocked her assault, Harman watched the zith that wielded the weapon touch down to the ground, as she delivered her strike.

The distance between Harman and the she zith was relatively minor, but it seemed like a mile from the boxer's viewpoint. He was suddenly regretting lying to the financier of the trip about his level of experience. Weapons reached further than his hands, and he only knew how to fight with his fists.

He took a step towards his attacker, after blocking the first club blow, only to find another hurtling towards him a second later.

Harman pulled his shield arm down to pad his right ribs, just as he would have used a boxing glove to block a punch to the same area of his body. The club hit with much greater force than a punch however, and Harman found himself widening the fighting stance that he'd assumed, just to be able absorb the strike.

The concussive energy pounded against his buckler, and forcefully pinned his arm against his side, causing it to begin to ache.

[Harman Dayis]

Raid
21st Of Summer

Harman stumbled. He was unable to throw even the most basic of punches, as the thing assaulted him with its club. He dodged the beast's next swing, and just barely sidestepped one that came very close to his leg after that.

Harman threw a jab at the female bat creature's head. His metal covered fist slipped past the agile being, however. He didn't fall off balance from the punch, but his failure to make contact did allow his opponent to initiate another strike that was aimed for his head, that he was in no position to block effectively.

Harman's green eyes grew very wide, as he saw the carved bone inching towards his hair. He momentarily wished he knew which god he should pray to, as he became positive that he wouldn't be able to block the she zith's attack this time.

The boxer's body locked up in morbid anticipation. Meanwhile his opponent stumbled. The bone club slipped from the zith's hand, and the fact that she was in the middle of swinging the weapon caused it to hurtle over Harman's head - like a boomerang of sorts.

The boxer blinked, as his limbs unlocked. Harman watched the zith, that had been seconds away from killing him, as she collapsed in a spasm ridden fit, to the ground.

Didn't have to pray after all, he mused somberly, as he saw the arrow sticking out of the dead monster's left eye. And that arrow gives me another idea, he thought.

The boxer didn't bother to look around for his rescuer, as he continued on his way to Jacs. He'd hopefully be able to repay the mystery archer from there.

Harman came up to the axe wielding mercenary and the zith that he was squaring off with. The boxer turned his run into somewhat of a galloping boxing stance. He came in to the blind spot of the male creature that Jacs was battling. With momentum on his side, Harman acted on pure homicidal instinct and drove his right fist against the zith's temple.

The creature screamed at an inhuman pitch, and began to spin, as the steel studs of Harman's gauntlet caused a cracking sound to echo off of its skull and into the night air. Jacs smiled, as his opponent faltered, and quickly seized the opportunity to bury his right axe into the zith's neck.

Harman watched as Jacs utilized the falling momentum of his felled enemy to curve his axe head out of its corpse, as the beast collapsed.

Jacs grunted and looked to Harman with wide, brown eyes that were dilated with battle fury.

Harman very quickly gathered himself, and took a harried breath.

"Jacs, I think we're all going to die," he said. "This isn't working."

[Harman Dayis]

Raid
21st Of Summer

Jacs glanced about, looking for threats.

This is the problem, they're so scared they're not thinking and they don't want to, Harman thought. The boxer had to admit that he was scared too, but at least he could still hear his own mind's machinations.

"Look at me," the sixteen year old implored Jacs. "Jacs, look at me!"

The blonde warrior's shaking eyes stared into Harman's own. Harman had come to enjoy the man that now looked at him, as if to say "what the hell do you want?". But, he was not enjoying the man he saw now, who, along with all the other mercenaries, was threatening to get him killed.

"Jacs. They can fly, we can't," Harman said; he was doing everything he could to control his shaking voice, and remain calm himself. "We need to fight together, not where they can dance around us in the air, and kill us when it suits them."

Jacs growled in frustration.

"You're right," Jacs said. "So what? We get everyone together?"

Harman nodded.

"Come on, they respect you - not me, they don't know me. They'll rally around the fire, where we can actually see, if you ask them," the sixteen year old directed.

"We'll probably still die, Harman. Out here they're the top dogs," Jacs replied simply, and referred to the zith with his words.

"Then let's die as the wolf that fought the bear, and not like the rabbit that was the wolf's breakfast," Harman replied.

The warrior clasped Harman on the shoulder, and then turned to the two other men who had been fighting closely with him.

For a single moment, as Jack looked away from him and began to relay the plan to the other mercenaries, Harman allowed himself to exhale one shaky breath. The sixteen year old didn't want to die valiantly, he wanted to live. His death would mean that he had failed, that he'd failed at life. It wasn't fair, life couldn't deal him a shit hand, and then kick him out the game before he could recover; he couldn't let the world petch him over like that. Sure, everyone else was playing with shit cards too, but he had always been so determined to be different - fuck everyone else - he was going to get everything he wanted. Life wanted to cheat him? Fine, he'd cheat life and slip an ace from out of his sleeve. Somehow, someway, he'd survive; because that was what he was, a survivor.

[Harman Dayis]

Raid
21st Of Summer

The remaining bandits and brigands rallied around Jacs and Harman, as the two gave the call and spread their plan. Whether the men were pulled, shouted to, or led to the fire, eventually everyone was around it. Some of the slavers and bandits died in the process, injuries were gained, and not many zith fell while they regrouped.

"Form a circle around the fire!" Jacs screamed, in an authoritative tone.

Harman sighed in relief, as he looked to his friend.

"We're not going to petching die tonight, boys!" Harman joined in with the mercenary.

The zith renewed their assault, while the men tried to close ranks as Jacs had commanded.

Harman surprised himself, by reflexively shield bashing one of the monsters, as it dive bombed him from out of the sky. The creature stumbled mid flight when Harman's buckler collided with its nose. Harman sidestepped its spiraling body, and it fell past him, into the middle of the circle of humans.

Harman watched the zith scrape away at the ground, as if it was trying to find its bearings. The man beside the teenager made sure it didn't get the chance to recover itself, however, by loping its head of with his great sword.

"Petching animal!" the swordsman said, as he decapitated the zith.

Harman watched the steel cleave into the hair covered flesh of the thing, and observed how its head rolled an inch or two before it then settled into the dirt. The zith's blood drained from its cleaved neck and mixed with the forest's soil; this mixing of the fluids and turf created what looked like tiny spots of mud, of the most macabre variety imaginable.

They're useless if they're crawling in the dirt, Harman mused. The thought, and the site of the headless zith's corpse, made Harman remember the female zith he'd combated earlier. In his mind's eye he saw the gruesome picture of a bestial, feminine, and almost beautiful face with an arrow lodged in one of its deep blue eyes.

The boxer stepped into the middle of the circle of men that he'd help create, and sidestepped the fire that everyone had grouped around. He scanned the human defenders for a moment, and then grabbed the nearest archer.

"Get in the middle," he ordered. "It's safer."

The archer that he'd touched glanced to Harman for a moment.

"We're fighting!" he said, as he turned from the boy, and then loosed the arrow that he had nocked.

Harman gritted his teeth.

The boxer grabbed the archer's shoulder again, but this time his touch had a more demanding force behind it.

"Aye, we're fighting," he agreed. "But we'll die if we don't do it right."

The archer growled.

"Petch off, and let me try not to then," the bowman said.

"I got us in this circle, you imbecile!" Harman snapped, but quickly collected himself. "Tell me it's not working, tell me it's why you haven't already died. No? Then listen to the man who saved you, when he's trying to save your ass again."

The archer paused, and Harman held his breath.

"Why?" the bowman inquired.

That worked? Harman was surprised.

"The other men will protect you, while you stand back and aim for those thing's wings," the teen explained. "If they hit the ground, then we can hit everything else on them too."

Harman moved on to the next man.

In total the boxer managed to round up three archers, and position them around the fire.

Harman looked down to Champion, who had never left his side. Me and him have to get out of this, at least, he thought. Which means I need to get everyone else to kill these things.

He glanced up, and examined the battle field. The circle was holding strong, though there were gaps in it, and he saw at least one fresh human corpse.

As he watched the men fight off the zith, Harman saw one of the flying race tackle a mercenary to the ground.

[Harman Dayis]

Raid
21st Of Summer

The circle was a step up from fighting in pockets of resistance, but it did have its faults. Humans were never meant to fight in the dead of night; the fire the men had grouped around did allow them to see out for multiple feet around where they were fighting, but it was still hardly ideal.

As Leth began to set, and Syna began to tiptoe her way onto the stage of the sky, more and more of the human defenders began to fall - whether from pure exhaustion, or by being bested by the zith that were still swarming around and towards them.

Harman threw his right fist forward. The studs of the gauntlet that he wore knocked the zith that was charging him to the ground.

The boxer was dripping sweat, and he had a long, somewhat deep scratch over his right eye. During the course of the night, one zith had managed to dig its claws into his flesh there; his eye was relatively unharmed, but he could feel his sweat mixing in with the half scabbed over blood of the wound - simply put, it was uncomfortable.

Champion - Harman's dog - meanwhile, was all but attached to the side of his master's right leg. The dog was not panicking, but he was not all together and calm either. It appeared that he trusted his master just enough to not run off.

The dog was knocked aside, as another zith tackled Harman to the ground.

The boxer screamed, and his attacker screeched.

"Help!" Harman shouted, as he used one of his hands to push up against the nose of the zith that was now atop him. "Help me!"

Harman threw a weak right hook across the face of the female. The thing hissed, and the boxer was forced to grab for its hands to keep her from clawing his throat out.

Harman glanced around, as he struggled, hoping to see the help he had called for coming. He was only greeted with the site of corpses to both his sides.

"Ahh!" the sixteen year old screamed, when the beast he was wrestling with momentarily freed her hands from his grasp and reopened the scab over his eye with her claws.

As he writhed in agony, he caught a glimpse of a glimmer from the ground beside him. Realizing that help might not be coming, for whatever reason, Harman grabbed the dagger that his green eyes had fallen upon.

The human backhanded the she zith with his free hand, when she attempted to stop him from retrieving the weapon. Within seconds, he had lodged the knife into the broadside of the creature's petite neck. Blood streamed and gushed around his hands, making his grip on the dagger that he held slippery and tacky. When he saw the zith twitch, however, whether he had a firm grip on the knife or not, he repeatedly pulled the weapon out of her neck and then deposited it into her again.

After the zith's blood had poured over his entire body, he withdrew and then slammed the knife once last time into her jugular. Harman used the force of the attack, and a rotation of his hips to roll the limp body of his opponent off of him.

[Harman Dayis]

Raid
21st Of Summer

The zith's dead body fell off of the crimson drenched Harman. His eyes were only greeted with the site of both a morbid and horrifying scene, as he climbed to his feet however.

Not a single bandit or slaver, besides himself stood now. There were corpses - both Zith and human, in equal measure - all around. Worst of all, Harman was greeted with the sight of another living zith.

The creature was standing over the form of a dog, and the canine wasn't moving.

Harman's eyes flashed with an instinctual, primal, scared, heartbroken, and red hot hate.

He instantly lunged for the zith's back and pulled the creature to the ground. His eyes blurred, as he landed atop the thing. The creature's face cracked, after he was hit with the first flurry of adrenaline filled punches from above. The crunching noises that came with the first fracturing of the zith's skull only grew more frequent, as more blows rained down on its face from above.

The thing would have had more than a chance at defending itself, had it not been surprised by Harman's assault. Surely, it must have had thought its brethren would have taken care of the human. It had been wrong of course, and as its facial structure was turned to a blob of unrecognizable horror over the next few minutes, it payed for its mistake dearly.

Harman's rage began to turn into worry for Champion, as he began to feel his hands bleed through his gloves and studded gauntlets. He crawled from atop his unmoving victim, and instead stumbled over to his unmoving dog's still form.

"Champion," he whispered.

He instantly dropped to one knee, when he reached his friend. He felt no heartbeat, when he touched the dog's chest. His green orbs saw the claw marks across the dog's torso, and began to take on the look of a broken man's eyes. However, when he put his hand in front of Champion's nostrils to feel for his breath, those same eyes grew wide.

"You'll be okay," he told the dog, as he picked the canine's injured body up. "Because, you have to be."

He took one last look around, making sure there were no more humans, or zith. Nothing and nobody filled the camp, as the sun began to illuminate the clearing that it was in.

What could he do? As he held his dog, he could feel the pet's blood leaking out to cover his arms and his hands. If everyone was dead, that meant he was stuck in the wilds alone, he realized.

How far was he from Sunberth? The caravan had only set off from the city three days ago. He didn't know the way back, though. What could he do? Maybe if he traveled back to the wagon that they had brought along, he could follow his memory and the wheel marks from it, and the footprints everyone had left? Maybe he could get back to the city that way.

He needed to take care of Champion first, he realized. The boxer glanced around, and then began to move in the direction of where the caravan had left the wagon. He couldn't help his dog here, though, he thought - it wouldn't be safe if more of the zith showed up.

I can't let us die, he told himself, I have to save us. He instinctually knew that he had to stay in control of himself. And as the reality of the situation set in, Harman became resolved that he and Champion had to live, despite the bleak circumstances.

[Harman Dayis]

Raid
21st Of Summer

After retrieving his backpack and bedroll from his tent, an exhausted Harman carried Champion over to the edge of the camp's clearing. He remembered that the wagon that the slaving caravan had set off with, had been left behind a thin strip of trees, and was parked just barely past the camp's boundaries.

He began to be forced to step over bodies other than those of the human defenders, as he walked further and further away from the center of the night's conflict. The corpses he stepped around were not those of the zith attackers either, however. Harman was avoiding the bodies of the slaves that the caravan had been transporting.

Many of the slave's corpses had collars on their necks; from their collars ran ropes that had been tied to stakes, that had held the slaves to the ground when they'd been alive. As he walked, the boxer noted that some of the slaves were missing. He wondered, had the zith taken the indentured humans?

"Help me," a weak voice cried.

Harman stopped in his tracks, slowly, as he heard it. The boxer turned his gaze to the bleeding body of a female slave.

"You're alive?" he asked her.

The slave coughed.

"Please," she begged.

Harman stared at the green eyed woman. He recognized this slave in particular, he knew her name, he remembered - she was called Jaclyn. The sixteen year old recalled having a small conversation with her, on the first day of the trip, when he had secured her with a rope to a stake in the ground.

"I can't help you," he told the woman, in a sad voice. "I have to help myself, and him first."

When Harman said "him", he was obviously referring to the injured dog that he was carrying.

Jaclyn looked at Harman imploringly.

"Please, I'll do anything. Aren't I more important than a dog?" she begged.

Harman sighed.

"I'm sorry," he said, and then began to continue on his way to the wagon.

"Wait," the woman called after him. "Please!"

Harman continued on walking a few more steps, and did his best to ignore Jaclyn's cries, as he did.

"You can't!" she threatened. "Stop! Please! Please, wait! I'll scream until those things come back, and I'll tell them where you went!"

Harman turned back to the woman, with a frown on his face. Within a few moments, he and Champion were right beside her.

"They can't speak our language," he said.

The woman looked up at him.

"Don't you know what they are? They're zith, some of them can speak common," she said. "And I'll tell them, even if they kill me after."

Harman sighed, slowly he bent down and placed Champion onto the ground. The dog whined.

"Can you walk?" he asked Jaclyn.

Jaclyn flinched, and then grew still again.

"I don't think so. Can you carry me?" she asked; there was suddenly hope visible in her eyes.

The slave realized, that despite her injuries, that she might be free. Now that her owner had died along with everyone else - save for her and Harman - no one owned her at all..

Harman put his hands on the woman.

"Come on, sit up first," he said, and helped her to do as he had directed.

Harman allowed one of his hands to come off of Jaclyn's body, as he held her up in a sitting position.

"Thank you," she said.

"You're welcome," Harman replied, as he withdrew a dagger - the same one that he'd used to kill the zith that had tackled him, earlier - from the waistband of his leather armor.

Jaclyn never saw the little knife pierce the base of her skull, or drive up into her brain. Harman frowned, as he watched the woman's eyes flutter furiously, and then gaze off into nothing. Her eyes were green, he observed for the second time, and were the same color as his own - and now they were the eyes of a corpse.

The boxer laid the girl's body back down, and withdrew the knife from the back of her head. Harman grunted and tossed the dagger to the ground; he had another one in his bag, and he didn't want the weapon any longer.

He wished he hadn't had to do as he had just done, but it was kill or be killed at this point - it had been since the zith had attacked. The woman had been wrong when she had said that she must be more important than Champion. She may have been right, that in general a human life was more valuable than a dog's, but - to Harman - Champion was no mere dog. Champion was Harman's friend, and his responsibility. And the girl he had just killed? She was nothing to him, she couldn't possibly be more important than a friend. So, when the woman had threatened his friend's and Harman's own safety, then she had to be removed as a threat.

[Aladari Coolwater]

Hey Harman. I already PM'd you about this, but I'm gonna need you to update your ledger with Summer expenses before I grade your threads. Let me know when you've done so and I'll finish up your grades. Thanks.