[Deaths] on a battlefield
Title: escalation
'Verse/characters: Deaths; ensemble
Prompt: 96B "breaking the rules"
Word Count: 723
Notes: this is the precursor to wake up. It includes an image from this spark response, and references miscalculation.
I am on codeine. My apologies if this reads badly.
Ever since the ugly incident with a cannon and a copse of trees, they had given orders to find and keep both the De'Aths occupied on the field directly, instead of back out of the way somewhere to plan or spring traps. It cost them many of the younger fighters--more than they'd really anticipated spending, considering the years the elder De'Ath had spent in a bottle and how long the younger had been across an ocean and out of the direct game--but it was considered worth it to avoid Roberts' fate.
It would be considered well worth it, if this gambit worked. Eduard De'Ath had started this war, brought his surprisingly deadly niece back, talked the Morrigan and however many others--many doubted that the death rumour claimed to be the First of China was actually so, let alone believed the rumour that had the Horseman's Son involved--into joining his side, and without him, they would likely fall apart, go back their separate ways. The Morrigan might keep fighting, but the De'Ath had almost certainly gained her support with the promise of as much bloody battle as she desired, and in the end, she was only one to their many.
The second-commander began the gambit almost too soon; he had hoped to get the De'Ath farther from the Morrigan. On a second thought, that might work to their advantage, considering the proclivities of the goddess she was allied with, and the commander could be forgiven for getting their man out of the line of fire of the younger De'Ath, who was carving her way through the ranks towards the command post.
Engeltod's daughter was tall, built more along her legendary father's lines than whoever her mother had been, with broad shoulders and narrower hips, and a reach like the wrath of some god. She would have been a wonderful asset to some council's ranks, if she had not been daughter and niece to who she was, and he almost regretted that she would likely have to die, some year.
She used the scythe like it was an extension of herself, quarterstaff and saber in one, fast and fluid and quickly bloody, with none of the Morrigan's flashy laughter, and he was beginning to be concerned that she would reach them before their man found a mark.
The shot rang out, then, and everyone turned to see in time to watch Teufeltod fall, and the Morrigan scream.
He had time to reflect, later, that that was the point the gambit, and the battle, fell apart. Because the standing De'Ath did not abandon her position to rush to her fallen uncle, and the Morrigan did not pounce on a dying tactician, or the death who'd shot him, but instead screamed hoarse crow defiance and went after anyone who stepped foot near the fallen De'Ath with murder in her eyes.
The death with the gun began his retreat, trying to disguise himself in lesser chaos than expected, backing well away from the Morrigan and the hissing curses she was raining on his head at the top of her lungs.
One could almost believe in curses, or in foolish rumours, when a different death came out of nowhere and took his gambit's head off his shoulders in a one-handed blow with a glowing sword. The gun dropped in a shower of blue fire, and the death picked it up, checked it over briefly with an evidently knowledgeable eye. As after a moment, he raised the gun, sighted along the barrel, fired, and dropped the second-commander from half the field away.
"You should not have done that," said a woman's voice, almost conversationally, and he turned to find her standing there, scythe propped against one shoulder, and the rest of his command staff scattered or on the ground.
"We fight to win," he told her, "and it was him who started this fight, not us."
"No," she replied in a flat, no-nonsense tone, "it was Kali who started this fight, when he captured my father. And now it's you, who's escalated it." She smiled humourlessly. "You have a few questions to answer."
" . . You must be joking."
"No," she said, and moved, the scythe coming around in a wicked silver arc, and he thought that it was strange that the blade was on the wrong side, when the world went dark.
'Verse/characters: Deaths; ensemble
Prompt: 96B "breaking the rules"
Word Count: 723
Notes: this is the precursor to wake up. It includes an image from this spark response, and references miscalculation.
I am on codeine. My apologies if this reads badly.
Ever since the ugly incident with a cannon and a copse of trees, they had given orders to find and keep both the De'Aths occupied on the field directly, instead of back out of the way somewhere to plan or spring traps. It cost them many of the younger fighters--more than they'd really anticipated spending, considering the years the elder De'Ath had spent in a bottle and how long the younger had been across an ocean and out of the direct game--but it was considered worth it to avoid Roberts' fate.
It would be considered well worth it, if this gambit worked. Eduard De'Ath had started this war, brought his surprisingly deadly niece back, talked the Morrigan and however many others--many doubted that the death rumour claimed to be the First of China was actually so, let alone believed the rumour that had the Horseman's Son involved--into joining his side, and without him, they would likely fall apart, go back their separate ways. The Morrigan might keep fighting, but the De'Ath had almost certainly gained her support with the promise of as much bloody battle as she desired, and in the end, she was only one to their many.
The second-commander began the gambit almost too soon; he had hoped to get the De'Ath farther from the Morrigan. On a second thought, that might work to their advantage, considering the proclivities of the goddess she was allied with, and the commander could be forgiven for getting their man out of the line of fire of the younger De'Ath, who was carving her way through the ranks towards the command post.
Engeltod's daughter was tall, built more along her legendary father's lines than whoever her mother had been, with broad shoulders and narrower hips, and a reach like the wrath of some god. She would have been a wonderful asset to some council's ranks, if she had not been daughter and niece to who she was, and he almost regretted that she would likely have to die, some year.
She used the scythe like it was an extension of herself, quarterstaff and saber in one, fast and fluid and quickly bloody, with none of the Morrigan's flashy laughter, and he was beginning to be concerned that she would reach them before their man found a mark.
The shot rang out, then, and everyone turned to see in time to watch Teufeltod fall, and the Morrigan scream.
He had time to reflect, later, that that was the point the gambit, and the battle, fell apart. Because the standing De'Ath did not abandon her position to rush to her fallen uncle, and the Morrigan did not pounce on a dying tactician, or the death who'd shot him, but instead screamed hoarse crow defiance and went after anyone who stepped foot near the fallen De'Ath with murder in her eyes.
The death with the gun began his retreat, trying to disguise himself in lesser chaos than expected, backing well away from the Morrigan and the hissing curses she was raining on his head at the top of her lungs.
One could almost believe in curses, or in foolish rumours, when a different death came out of nowhere and took his gambit's head off his shoulders in a one-handed blow with a glowing sword. The gun dropped in a shower of blue fire, and the death picked it up, checked it over briefly with an evidently knowledgeable eye. As after a moment, he raised the gun, sighted along the barrel, fired, and dropped the second-commander from half the field away.
"You should not have done that," said a woman's voice, almost conversationally, and he turned to find her standing there, scythe propped against one shoulder, and the rest of his command staff scattered or on the ground.
"We fight to win," he told her, "and it was him who started this fight, not us."
"No," she replied in a flat, no-nonsense tone, "it was Kali who started this fight, when he captured my father. And now it's you, who's escalated it." She smiled humourlessly. "You have a few questions to answer."
" . . You must be joking."
"No," she said, and moved, the scythe coming around in a wicked silver arc, and he thought that it was strange that the blade was on the wrong side, when the world went dark.