Solo Slicing Shadows

[Konrad Venger]

71st Day of Winter, 516AV
11th Bell, Pridesun Pavilion

The post was his partner, such as it was. It sufficed as his target, too, when he practiced with his bow. One side of it was pockmarked by gouges from arrows, but that day he'd be making a different kind. Konrad knew it was silly, seeking out the same damn length of wood whenever Endrykas moved and uprooting it to serve his own ends, but it was familiar. Durable. Proven.

Besides, who was going to miss a piece of wood.

Eleventh bell into the day and the Sunberth man stalked underneath a sky fit to burst. The clouds had been massing all night, arraying themselves in dark, thick ranks for the coming onslaught. All knew that rain was coming, from the chickens and cows to the Drykas and wahlaks. All around buckets and barrels and all sorts of receptacles had been placed out, seeking to capture as much of the deluge as would arrive.

Winter was not Winter anymore, and what soaked the ground in the morning would be burnt off into dust by nightfall. Nothing could go to waste. Konrad knew all this, but his mind was not concerned with it. Just the post, and the blade in his hand.

He tossed the curved weapon from hand to hand, seeking communion with it. Not the one he'd carried for years, was that kukri. He'd practically taken it from a dying man's hand days before, just before shuffling him along all the way to "dead". He had no need of it, anyway.

He whipped and slashed the kukri through the air, unencumbered by all save his vest and breeches. Gods, he was even dressing like a Drykas now, but there was merit in the choice. His duster was a burden in the sweltering heat that never left them; even the sleeves of his shirt were sodden within bells. He wanted movement for what he planned to do, the training he needed.

What I need is a partner, he thought sourly, shooting daggers at the inoffensive and mute post. But this is what I have.

His mind was enough. What he could see, and imagine, and react to. A phantom with a short sword, swinging it diagonally down to cleave through his shoulder-

-his arm shot up, kukri flat to ward off the blow. Then he pushed up and to the side, opening up the phantom's sword-

Thunk

-slashing his riposte down into the post at neck level. He'd sharpened the weapon, of course. Every day, like all his blades. It was ritual and upkeep both, the routine of any man that lived by the tools of death. He noted with satisfaction that it bit more than an inch into the wood. Had it been an actual neck, it would have cleaved straight down to bone, severing veins and muscle on the way.

Konrad ripped it free and paced around the post. Hacking. Slashing. Cutting. That's what the heavy blade was made for. Stabbing? Well, it could, and quite effectively... but that was not its design.

In mid-step he swayed away, as if the phantom he swung at him and he jerked his body back, sword cutting nothing but air in front of his face-

-he burst forward, kukri tight at his side, arm suddenly straightening as he thrust forward with it-

Thunk

Not intended, but definitely useful. The tip of the kukri stabbed into the pole, almost an inch. Konrad had to wiggle and jiggle to pull it free. A man? He'd have had blood smeared all over his hand, blade buried to the hilt in his guts.

Again his unseen enemy attacked, a stab at his guts this time, and Konrad stepped to the side, slashing out with his kukri to knock the blade away-

-following up with a backhand-

SHUNK

More power there. Especially when he threw his hips into the motion. The phantom's throat would have been cleaved open like a side of beef, all thoughts of retaliation forgotten in place of keeping heart from pouring out of the ragged hole under his chin. He had to grip it two-handed to pull it free that time, and then he was pacing, tossing, thinking, imagining.

Konrad really needed a partner. But this was what he had.

[Konrad Venger]

He wasn't trying to cut the pole in half. Not that his kukri could do it with one swing - hells, his kopis probably couldn't - but if he kept burying it time after time into the wood and then yanking it back out, that's what would happen.

Fwap... fwap... fwap... From hand to hand it went, movements so smooth and familiar that Konrad didn't even need to look down. Strange how it was almost the same weight as the one he'd lost fighting Three Eyes. He swung it briefly around his hand then settled it close to his hip.

Don't want some bastard kicking or snatching it out your hand, boy, he remembered, voice of his father rising from the buried past to impart the one useful lesson he'd even taught. Keep it tight to your side, your grip tighter and your arm loose. Need to be ready to move it fast.

Not all brawls ended quickly. Not every enemy was taken down with a quick slash. Konrad knew that very well. So he shook the sweat from the dirty blond locks framing his face and rolled his shoulders. Time for a different enemy.

He came in fast, bludgeon of metal and leather swinging for Konrad's head-

Konrad ducked and slid to the side, baring his teeth in feral joy that now, finally, after scores of days, his body was his own again. Even his limp was fading, and there was no resistance as he ducked under his enemy's swing and-

SHHHKK

-slashed into his leg as he went, kukri hacking into the wooden post but not burying inside it. Konrad barely had to yank it to free it again, backhanding again in roughly the same spot-

The phantom howled, going down to one knee, tendons on his right leg ripped apart, swinging backhanded desperately-

Konrad's empty left hand shot out, palm first, deflecting and catching the knobbly-headed mace before it could land a blow, stopping it dead and, more importantly, the arm swinging it-

-hacking down with his kukri, chopping through thin air and the elbow of that arm, breaking it, cracking bone, ruining ligaments and muscle-

"rrrrrrrrRAH!"

THUNK

The finishing blow. A diagonal hack into the middle of the pole, roughly where the kneeling, crippled phantom would be. It would cleave muscle and veins and arteries and wouldn't stop until it ground into spine. Konrad yanked it free, imagined the man falling, toppling, gushing blood and already forgotten.

Fwap... fwap... fwap... his pacing continued, kukri hopping idly from hand to hand, and his gaze did not leave the ravaged pole. Still early. Still much left to do. Much to catch up on.

Don't Make Me Repeat Myself.

[Konrad Venger]

It wasn't the blade that mattered; it was the body that wielded it. Konrad had learned that lesson young, and yet to be embroiled (em-brawled?) in a contest where it wasn't true. He'd seen century-old rusted garbage best Isurian steel broadswords, because the man swinging it actually knew what he was doing, and had the will to win.

The body won the fight, not the blade. The blade just ended it.

He bobbed and ducked and swayed and slid around the pole, kukri in hand, slashing and swinging but never hitting the pole. A phantom with five limbs and evil intent was before him, slashing at him over and over. Every time he avoided a blow, he imagined another one coming to gut him-

-hammering at his side, forcing him to slide through the wet grass away from it, kukri swinging down to knock away the phantom blade-

-then duck down to avoid a club to the skull, stomach and legs creaking in protest as he halved his height in an instant, kukri backhanded out at crotch-level as retaliation-

-before he spun away again, body jerking hard to the side, letting a heavy blade part air where his torso shoulder have been, punishing the impudence of his attacker with a swing of his hips leading a knee slamming upright into their stomach-

On and on and on. After a few chimes he peeled off his vest, now sticking to him on every inch, and hung it from the pole. But he did not stop. Avoidance, agility, these were things he could know intimately and yet never express unless his body was as fit as his mind. So he wiped the sweat from his brow and shook out his hair, splattering sweat beads all around him.

His legs ached. His arms were lead. He danced on.

He slid to his right, kukri slashing up, caught in the light like captured silver-

-blocking a blow that he countered with a boot, kicking out and hammering into the pole-

-twisting away again, heaving his body back and to the side as a spear that would have gutted him sailed clean past him-

-grabbing out with his free hand, breaking the captured arm with a knee, finishing with the kukri slashing an unseen throat-

-jumping back, light as a bird, trailing a minor shower of sweat as he went, only way to avoid a swinging broadsword that could have cleaved him in two-

-then surging forward again, gritting his teeth as his legs howled under him, hacking to the side with his kukri to knock away the sword-

-ducking under a haymaker swinging for his face-

Thunk

-landing a punch of his own at where the kidneys would be, if a pole had kidneys, shaking the battered but still-standing wood-

Thunk

-hissed through the pain in his knuckled as he slammed his fist again into it, higher up-

-sliding hard to his side, avoiding another swing, ending up behind the phantom, behind the pole-

THUNK

-burying the kukri into the back of his enemy's neck with a backhand.

For a long moment, the clearing was silent save for ragged panting and the odd, protesting squeak of wood pierced dozens of times by uncaring humanity. Konrad found himself almost hanging off the handle of the weapon, arm twitching and twinging from the effort. How long now? Half a bell? Three-quarters? More?

Not long enough, he reminded himself, needing two hands to pull the kukri free... and then sheathing it. Time to mix it up a little.

Don't Make Me Repeat Myself.

[Konrad Venger]

Silver arced through the midday air, over and over, landing with (mostly) lethal intent. Time and time again it flew, free and spinning, then slammed into the pole, elegant freedom stopped still as metal met wood.

Konrad stalked over and yanked the throwing knife free for the twentieth time. Most of the throws before had hit it. Seemed like he was improving.

It was a short walk back to his practice spot. Not even ten yards from the pole. He'd learned after the first half-a-dozen throws that his skill wasn't good enough for the thin target of the pole; he had to be close enough to make out the gouges in it, near enough that the knife's flight was but a tick.

Again he took his position. Squared his feet, both aiming at the pole. Reached out his arm... pointed at it with the tip of the knife. He'd watched Three Eyes hurl that thing hundreds of times, holding it by blade or by hilt, and this... this seemed to work better.

Yes, less clanging off the damn wood when it crashes handle-first.

He drew back his arm and brought it forward again. Got a feel for the knife, some ghost of the throw that was to be. Until the movement was familiar, innate, and the final extension was a blur of metal and flesh and-

Let go. Just part your fingers, right at the end-

THUNK

It was an odd angle, but still the knife struck its mark. Konrad spat to the side and cocked his head. Gods. Another quarter-tick and it would have bounced off and gone spinning into the grass. He stalked, he retrieved, he took his stance, a silent dance of practice that still-

-would not mute the voices that his training was aimed at stilling.

He drew back, and threw-

THUNK

Jonas.

Again-

THUNK

Jonas.

Again-

CLANG

Jonas.

"Shyke!"

The bastard was leaking into his hands, oozing down from his mind and into his hands and finally, lying there in the grass with as much deadliness as a discarded butter knife, was his weapon. Konrad glared at it. He would have dearly loved to blame the blade, but that would not have been accurate. Wouldn't have helped, either.

Would that it was him in front of me. Wouldn't even care if it didn't kill him, first throw-

THUNK

Then I could finish the cunny with my bare bloody hands.

Imagining the grinning, pompous, dpulicitious shyke standing where the pole was? That seemed to help. Konrad threw the knife into his heart, his face... and his crotch, more than once. Hated what wasn't there as much as he did when he saw the man in the flesh, gliding among his flock and speaking as if he were a prophet. Then he would catch Konrad's eyes and-

There was a smile. Something secret, just between them. A little dip of his head, as if confirming for himself that Hansel, one of his poor, woe begotten wahlaks, was indeed as deep in his pocket as he liked.

THUNK

Konrad snarled with the last throw, a little harder than necessary. The blade sunk nearly two inches into the wood and he rolled his eyes. Aye, that'd be a bastard to get out. And where was his indignation coming from? He was a liar, too. Wearing a dead man's name, never speaking of his past, cloaking himself as just a quiet, industrious figure that floated around Endrykas like a ghost.

Bastard knows it, too, he though, finally freeing the blade from the pole. Why else would he pick you?

Because he was expendable. He didn't need some whispering voice to tell him that: it was obvious. Konrad knew there would be no protection for him... or if there was, it would be conditional. Jonas wanted him on a leash, taken off only when another obstacle to his power among the Horselords needed to be... handled. Who better, then, than Konrad?

The blade moved back and forth in his grasp. Over and over. Slowly. Soon would come the throw... but it never did. His mind was not with the pole anymore; it was with that damn meeting two score days in the past, where the saintly mask Jonas Pridesun wore was stripped away and a grinning thing of avarice and ambition was revealed. If only to Konrad.

He knew what others would feel. The shocked indignation. The outrage at sure professed faith hiding deceit. The horror of being order to slay another, just because a man who held power over you willed it-

Konrad cursed low and venomous, and his actual issue was revealed. Whatever power Jonas held, it was within his own pavilion, and as far as Konrad could tell, no further. He was a man with grand plans and high delusions... but the Sunberth killer had known plenty such men in the alleys and taverns of his home. They spied a throne and plotted to make it their own. He'd worked for a few, in his time.

But only a few. There was a good reason for that.

Because he'll lose. And even if he doesn't, you will.

Konrad's wrist flicked down, and with a dull whump the knife sank almost hilt-deep into the dirt. His hands flexed. Something more than muscle lurked there, and Konrad's hideous glare never left the pole. Never left the phantom of the man who presumed to rule him, and lead him to bondage or failure.

Dram by dram, wisp by wisp, the res began to flow.

Don't Make Me Repeat Myself.

[Konrad Venger]

Trevin had told him, more than once, that anger was not the means to master Reimancy. Emotion was a raw and unbridled thing by itself, and marrying it to djed... that could birth a monster. Rage did not know when to stop, like a wild fire; it died only when its fuel did. Hate snapped and gnashed and howled and tore but never healed, never found a cure or solution, only railed against the symptoms.

Konrad knew all of that, but he knew too that he'd lived with those twin furies his whole life. He knew how to control them, channel them, direct them. Lash them to his will and beat down their heat into icy, precise violence.

Violence was an affliction of will against another. Just like this kind of djed.

Come.

He raised his hands and res curled from his palms, coming together in the air between them like smoke or water dribbling across the sky. Konrad wasn't staring at it, he glared above, at the pole, imagining it fatter and wider and topped with blonde hair and a saintly smile under cold eyes.

The res hummed between his hands. Roiled and turned on itself like a storm-ridden sea. Then he thought of Jonas' last words to him, his smirk of victory and what he'd like to have done-

Burn.

Syna bloomed between his palms. Heresy of thought enough to make him snarl, thinking that for all his subtleties, the ankal did not have real power. He had to twist his words and souls with them; he needed those two walking slabs of obedient muscle to protect him; he worked from the shadows and spun his webs but he did not have true-

Yes, he does. Otherwise, he would not have you as he does.

Konrad snarled and the fireball grew. A handful of passing Drykas eyed the man wearily, seeing the flaming orb he controlled swell, still fed by res from his hands. Until he slammed them shut into fists, sweat starting to run down his face, yet he heeded it not, his mind was away-

You live no less in shadows. You lie. You wait. You ape these people and know you will never be of them. You take what you will in knowledge, that you can better survive, but as soon as you can, you will run.

You're just angry that Jonas beat you-

A snarl became a roar and Konrad snapped his arms out, from bent and close to his chest to fully straight towards the post-

BURN.

-sending the fireball hurtling towards it. And oh, it would hit. He didn't need the accuracy of his muscles, nor the precision that experience would lead, as one would with a bow or his knife. No, this was purely an effort of his mind: if he wanted to hit it, then he had only to direct it with his will.

His muscles started to seize, sweat was dripping from his chin, running down his scars and Konrad just ground his teeth and bore it, waiting until it was a bare foot away from its target-

"BURN!"

SNAP

A barked and snapped his fingers and the core of the fireball ignited, no, exploded-

CRACK

The pole was blown in half as if struck by an ax made of liquid metal. Far hotter than his usual, surface-flaming fireball, the djed construct ripped through the weakened wood where it struck, eating hungrily through its fuel, turning it to ash in fractions of a tick, until it incinerated a chunk of it nearly half a foot wide... and the impact knocked the top part off into the air, spinning lazily... until it hit the ground with a wet thunk.

Konrad lowered his trembling arms. They twitched and trembled as if he were an old man. His jaw worked crazily under his skin. He could see him, he could see Jonas burned alive by such a blast. His chest made a smoking hollow by the impact, heart and lungs turned into ash and stinking slag. But he was not there. Just a piece of smoking wood.

All I'm doing is fighting shadows, he thought, waiting with snappy impatience for the control to come back to his fingers. Long as he's alive...

Which was, after all, the problem. But one he vowed he'd not have to live with forever.

Don't Make Me Repeat Myself.

[Khida]

Konrad Venger

Skill	Points
Acrobatics	+2
Reimancy	+1
Socialization	+1
Unarmed Combat	+2
Weapon: Kukri	+5
Weapon: Throwing Knife	+2

• Acrobatics: hopping back to evade
• Acrobatics: swaying aside in a dodge
• Combat: hate makes for harder strikes
• Combat: sparring with an imagined partner
• Combat: will, not weapon, wins the fight
• Jonas Pridesun: a man with grand delusions but less power
• Reimancy: amplifying magic with emotion
• Reimancy: igniting an explosive, raging fireball
• Socialization, Drykas: dressing to suit the weather
• Unarmed Combat: catching the enemy's weapon
• Unarmed Combat: striking out with a sharp kick
• Weapon, Kukri: a savage chop down and through
• Weapon, Kukri: blocking with the blade flat
• Weapon, Kukri: could stab, but made to chop
• Weapon, Kukri: duck and slash the leg
• Weapon, Kukri: heavy blade bites deep

Notes

At first, I figured this was just your average practice thread; then halfway through, it revealed itself as a lovely piece of characterization. Another great read! Though now Konrad's going to have to go break in another post...

Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns regarding your grade. Also, please edit your request to show this thread has been graded.