The Kaczmarek Killer

[Teron_Ashfiend]

There had never been few living men that had willingly and knowing served the Ashfiend directly. The few who did were often strange amongst their kind, considered twisted or monstrous, and often unknowingly seeking a master to hold their leashes. Uriel was one such, a quiet man whose arm had been replaced with a necromantic appendage that lent him greater strength to apply only to mean, brute tasks. Yet his eyes and ears were far more valuable, particularly now.

The blacksmith had heard of the High Constable's recent acquisition, how the Kaczmareks now worked for Cinnabar Calomel. The Constable's name stirred his wrath as he turned his gaze out over the farmlands. He waited, shrouded in shadow, straining in the distance, as activity circled about and then entered the barn that towered on the premises. Silence settled about him, the world holding its breath as he prepared to act, prepared to murder, and share his agony with Myrken once again. The earth itself had already suffered from his waiting, his presence slowly turning the grass about him into a blighted, lifeless circle.

A mailed hand drew the great, two-handed weapon from his back - a simple, straight sword bearing a diamond within the center of the hilt - and he hesitated as the familiar handle settled against armored fingers. The once holy blade had been permanently stained with old, black blood that pursued him from battle and conquest to every victory attained over the bodies of his enemies. A fiery gaze wandered down the weapon's length, falling heavily upon his distorted, blood-hidden reflection.

He saw the tattered cloak, hemmed in faded cloak, that crested in a low hood whose shadows sealed away his visage save for the unwavering glare of burning, crimson eyes. He saw the dark grey scarf coiled about the lower half of his visage, and the blackened, scarred armor that encased his blasphemous body. For a brief moment Glenn's words haunted him.

...who were you...

He started forward, sword at the side, one hand free to work his fell magics should they prove necessary. His shadow bled a long, dark stain across the fields as he stalked towards assembled huts beneath moon and star. Their cold, alien light silhouetted him in a strangely white halo that dimmed even in the evening darkness as it struck him, as if his very being greedily drank and glutted upon it. With every stride Glenn's query echoed louder in his thoughts, a growing fist hammering upon his memories from within.

His own fist raised then, battering open the door of the first hut. The faces of those therein were masks of fear. Blood and hope drained from their countenances as a black rose of fear blossomed upon their very doorstep, clad in armor, eyes alight with pitiless fury. It was a simple thing, even as they valiantly tried to resist, to shatter life beneath the tireless descents of his ancient sword and terrible fury. Each death to silence Glenn's accusing questions, every kill a message for the haughty High Constable.

Their screams silenced, one by one, the hut a gruesome testament to their mustered courage and his endless fury. With a damp fingertip, he hastily scrawled a bloody image upon the back of the door: a vertical sword crossed at the hilt by wilted roses. With a bestial snarl, he vented his fury upon the hut itself, his fits smashing tables and battering chairs, before he emerged again beneath the dark evening sky.

A free hand worked a few sorcerous gestures and leveling his finger upon a nearby structure, hurled magical flame towards it. The cackling flames echoed his soul and, with a thunderous detonation, the building caught flame and begin to burn as a sympathetic pyre to his first victims.

Remembering the movement earlier that day, his gaze flickered towards the structure from which they had not yet emerged even as a few stragglers caught sight of the Ashfiend and broke the burning silence with panicked cries.

Slowly, he proceeded towards the barn.

[Sadism]

He'd perched at the peak of a house, the eye with the red pupil staring hungrily at the few townspeople that moved back and forth below him. Almost he could hear their shrieks caressing his ears like the sweetest of ballads. Almost he could feel the shudder of their muscles as they lashed out in agony, the tremors bleeding into him through the contact of his hands, and his blades.

The low moan of delight was stifled as a flicker of light caught his attention, jerked his eye up from one particularly promising individual. Thin lips were licked with consideration, his eye darting between the glow in the distances and the woman below.

"It burns already... By the time I arrive, the fun will be over. Yet she lingers there on the corner. Waiting for a lover? Oh, such delight.. I could... deprive them of each other."

Even as he eyed the girl, even as he spoke the words to convince himself to stay, darkness erupted from his back. Tendrils of oblivion swarmed from his shoulders, waving madly in the air as they fought one another, wound around one another, and merged with each other. The mesh work was lain, and the ruinous wings arced in the night, stretching outwards.

"Tomorrow, then. I'll find you tomorrow, sweetheart. Then we'll play."

Forward he lept from his perch, ravaged appendages stretching even though they could not provide flight. Yet even before gravity caught him, thin tendrils had burst into a flurry of activity, shooting from one joint to the next, spreading like a spilt glass.

The woman below was startled by the loud snap, glancing up to the heaven's to see what had caused it. A great expanse of leathery wings sent a shiver down her spine, her subconscious screaming as it heard the faint death whispered by each down-beat.

[channe]

The barn.

Inside, a four-dozen revelers, eating and drinking on Calomel's dime, dreaming about the future and chattering with their new employer about new homes, new cielings, new chances. And here: like any party, some of the youngest, and some of the oldest, are getting tired as the night grows on.

Mateusz, Piotr's eldest twin, is rubbing his eyes while his brother runs about, high on too much sugar-candy. But his mother, Lina, is having such fun drinking with her friends, chatting with the elder Dolokovs; so, see, Laranna, Dominik's wife, takes her nephew's hand and escorts the child home. She tucks him in, she takes her husband's bed -- this is what the Kaczmareks do, they are *family*, they take care of one another -- and sleeps.

Elzhara Massry isn't a Kaczmarek, but she may as well be; like the Swithins before her, she was a close confidante of both Magda and Karol. She's a terrible dancer, so she takes an early exit, goes back to the hut next door --

-- fire.
-- screaming.
-- the end.



They have to hold Dominik back. He can't fight; all he can do is scream, as he sees the hut in which his wife is sleeping go up in flames, as he sees the Ashfiend stride out and carve his sigil in blood. Piotr goes -- oh, God, it's Mateusz, it's his son, it's -- it's too hot, it's far too hot, he and Lina will get burned for the closeness of it but, oh, God, it's Mateusz, we have to get Mateusz -- and here, there is nothing sure, nothing certain but the death of their family, of the boy and Dominik's wife and the others who were sleeping, the Stones and the Massrys and --

-- and a scream, a NO as loud as the flames, as Agnieszka runs out, armorless, wielding her rapier and the kitchen-knife, running towards the Ashfiend with murder on her heels, and Dominik breaking from the men holding him back and barreling, knife in his hand, for the huts.

"'Ranna!"

[Cinnabar]

A grand celebration, introductions made, faces and names memorised as best he can; food and wine and everywhere smiles and laughter and someone's even dug out a whistle and timbrel so there is haphazard music and careless, joyful dancing. Enough to drown out the brief screams of the slain. Enough that these new-found friends are butchered while neighbours and family continue in their revels.

But then there is that sudden thump of flames, a red-orange flare that lights the faces of those who'd stepped outside for air, that prickles their skin with heat even at this distance and draws gasps and cries from their throats and brings the music and festivities to a horrified end.

Cinnabar Calomel, for a brief time their master and thereafter merely their landlord, pushes through the gathering crowd at the doorway to stare towards the flame with every bit as much shock and horror as those who stand beside him. In doublet and shirtsleeves, having doffed his coat to share a dance with the daughter of one of the tenant families, he gazes incomprehending at this sudden pillar of destruction rising up into the evening sky, lips moving soundlessly, at a loss.

Then his gaze lowers again and there is that figure silhouetted against the blaze, armour and ragged cloak and blade, and the landlord's eyes narrow to slits and he is become motion.

His voice is loud, clear and commanding as he moves to shove the stunned throng away from this approaching figure, forcing them to move their feet lest they go sprawling on their faces.

"The Ashfiend! It's the Ashfiend! Go! Go now! To the town! Run!" The word is quick to pass through the small crowd, and fear follows soon after as wide eyes gaze upon this creature that has come to stand for all that is dark and twisted and wrong about Myrken Wood. Then the crowd is running, festivities forgotten, plates and cups dropped and trampled into the barnyard dirt as they flee. Parents and older siblings carrying infants and toddlers who scream in bewilderment at this sudden upset, grown-up children aiding elderly parents in their panicked, desperate flight.

Between the crowd and the Ashfiend move a scant handful of figures, those too furious or distraught or maddened with loss to fear or to care that the figure that stalks towards them might as well be Death itself. A dagger, a kitchen knife, a rapier; and then Cinnabar is snatching up a pitchfork from its place beside the barn and following on the others' heels. His features form a mask of diabolical fury from which mirrorsilvered eyes reflect the flames; his muscles move with a strength and grace beyond what is right or human, carrying him in long, loping strides towards the Fiend, pitchfork lowered like a lance; and rage, palpable rage pulses from him in waves, a wall of wrath that batters on the senses like a thousand clenched fists.

A cry of anger becomes a shout becomes a roar that shakes the air in one's chest as the silver-haired man issues his challenge.

[Carnath-Emory]

It has been such a pleasant day. A morning spent at the outskirts-smithy of very talented Bos had naturally become a day spent examining her purchase from it. Had become hours passing virtually unnoticed, until the very loud growling of her stomach had begun to interfere. For a time she'd wandered the Market then, in search of apples and for breads to take back to the tavern; had become briefly lost in the world of fabrics and tailors and insistences that she prepare an autumn wardrobe now, now.

So that she'd never noticed the speck of light slowly forming upon the darkening horizon. Had not thought once to glance that way, until the fellow with the excellent coats pointed it out across her shoulder. And recommended brass buttons incidentally, enormously popular over in Derry this year or so the word goes, and perhaps piping in a fetching russet thread --

When asked what lies in that direction, he replies without hesitation, and regrets it almost immediately, for that advice has lost him a customer. Atop that black beast of a horse she is, within the second syllable of Kaczmarek, and riding for that land as if she were chased.

Or chasing.

[channe]

Next to murderous lord Calomel, a man who no longer cares whether he lives or dies, a man who cannot imagine a life without his 'Ranna, a man who knows just enough knifework to stay alive when a smuggling bid goes wrong: this is Dominik Kaczmarek, this is the man whose heart will be stilled before he gives up today, Ashfiend.

On the other hand of murderous lord Calomel, a girl who swore four years ago over her father's broken body that she would never allow anything to hurt the Kaczmarek family ever again, who swore that oath on steel and never looked back: this is Agnieszka Kaczmarek, this is the girl who decided her heart was made of iron, of steel, of metal for everyone but for these people; this is the girl that would go up against Ashfiend with her speed and such steel.

This is whirling anger. This is grief used as a weapon; this is love torn and burned like flesh.

This is the Kaczmarek family, huddling together by the burning barn, Magda and her children and her children's children: young Magda, young enough to be a grandmother and to have more children yet, young enough to stay and hope and not old enough to know to run. Magda Kaczmarek will no longer run.

[Jirai]

Rhaena

It was fortunate - or unfortunate - timing.

It had been some time since she had spoken with her friend, and the veiled girl planned on fixing that. There was much to talk about, of course, much explaining she owed Agnieszka. Too much had been happening. So this evening found the young Trader stepping out towards the Kaczemarek farm.

But there was fire. That much she could see from a distance.

The girl began to run.

[Teron_Ashfiend]

Scourging flames smote his hatred upon the common person, the living person, of Myrken Wood and silhouetted him in wrathful, hungry scarlet tongues and coiling, fingers of smoke that reached heavenward in grim supplication. Shouts and screams alight upon his ears, stirring his thoughts, a fierce growl and a piercing cry in particular bidding him come forward and die. In return a searing, livid crimson gaze skewers the three challengers each at one and without falter. With the two-handed sword held firmly in only one, the other mailed extremity remaining open but ready, he starts towards them.

An agonized chorus haunts the air about them, filling it with prayers and sorrow, smoke and ash, as his blighted path beads steadily towards his would-be enemies. A silent tread carries the silent, armored figure forward as a relentless wind, winter crushing autumn, as death shrouding life. A sudden hot gust teases out the length of a tattered black cloak.

The length of his shadow flickers, mirroring the fires that writhe within his core, taking in the three who yet approach. He spares them no words, requiring none, all of them assembled aware of his statement, his sign upon the door, and his murderous intent. Battle cries that seek him out find silence in return, in word and movement despite the charred, scored plate he wears. His answer is, instead, is the slow raising of his empty hand as they close the distance.

A hand that begins to trace and weave an arcane pattern through the air, burning his will into the world itself. Long fingers splayed, fanning out, as a small spark of roaring light shimmers within his palm. With a hot, triumphant roar the flames are unleashed as a brief, tri-part horizontal column, each seeking out Cinnabar, Agnieszka and Dominick in turn. In its wake he does not falter or pause, quickly hefting Deliverance in both hands, the blade still bearing the signs of its executioner's use.

[Cinnabar]

Perhaps the Ashfiend expects his targets to fall before these torrents of flame; perhaps he expects them to falter, to dive out of the way or otherwise turn aside their charge towards him. Perhaps he expects to see them consumed by sorcerous fire, reduced to charred meat on blackened bones, nothing more than the most recent to join the long list of the dead that line his path through the centuries.

Perhaps the Ashfiend has forgotten his struggle with young Cinnabar Calomel over the coals of a smithy furnace.

The flames strike Calomel square in the chest, a roiling gout of fire that flows over him and around him; in mere seconds that fine shirt is reduced to charred rags, soft leather doublet singeing and blackening in the heat; a flare of sparks surrounds his head as silver hair sizzles and is reduced to ashen stubble.

And yet he thunders onwards, unflinching in the face of this fiery onslaught, the tips of his pitchfork heating to dull red as he braces it to strike at the Ashfiend's blackened heart; the makeshift weapon couched before him like a charging pikeman, placing behind those iron tines the full force of his momentum, of his wrath and fury and outrage.

[Carnath-Emory]

Within the first half-mile, they've begun to encounter survivors.

They are desperate creatures, these people. They are peasant-stock, clearly so: it's written in the grime and soot of their faces, in the well-patched coarseness of their clothes. It's written in the stubborn contours of their features, which serve not at all to disguise their fear.

Only a firm hand will arrest their flight; words are not sufficient, even shouted. Bent double, she grips a shoulder, an arm, the trailing end of a shawl, and barks curt questions to be heard above their cries. Not all of them answer her, and those who do speak in fragments, in half-voiced words and frantic gesture, and always it ends in Let me go, go, go --

But certain words are repeated. Certain names are. And even a blunt-witted sellsword can string one to the next and make sense of it all, the most horrible sense of all, so that soon she is pressing coins into grubby hands. To the Council, she urges some. To the Constables, she urges others, and To the Chapel most of all, for they'd sheltered folks from dragons and armies there once, and will take these refugees as well. The currency's clearly unnecessary: they are so eager to run, these terrified things.

But then, so is she. Those names, after all.
Magda, they'd said. Dominik. Calomel.
Ashfiend, most of all, and over and over again.

Oh, those names teach speed to the rider and her warhorse. Speed enough to steal the breath from her throat, as they race like iron-clad thunder down towards those hungry flames.

[Jirai]

Rhaena

Skirts are torn in her dash, but what matter that? She was uncaring of such externals, racing up the path as fast as lanky legs could carry her. The girl rushes into the yard, eyes darting about wildly. There is the hut, the barn.

And there is hatred. It flows over her, bringing the girl to an abrupt halt, momentum sending her to her knees. Veiled head moves unerringly:

The Fiend.

Agnieszka. Dominik. Calomel.

The Kaczmareks. Or what remain of them.

And, oh, the rage and hatred fit so nicely in her mind at this sight, at this terror threatening the sister-of-her-heart. It is terror that drives her back to her feet.

There is a horrible moment of indecision as the girl struggles to her feet, but - with a wrench of her heart - it is to the group of Kaczmareks that she turns her hurried strides. They huddle by the barn and this flurry of skirts and veils joins them, dropping down beside them, arms spread wide - and to any who were open to the girl's talents, this group would seem to dissapear, eyes sliding right by them as though there was nothing to see - for so she was assuring any vulnerable mind. Nothing to see. Nothing here.

But she could not rid herself of the radiating hatred.

[Sadism]

With his bottom lip caught firmly - bloodlessly - between his teeth, he watched, perched on the peak of the barn that had not so long ago held the days festivities. The stink of joy was washed away by the odours of death and mayhem. Deeply he inhaled, drawing the scent of carnage into himself. Delicious. Delightful.

"Yes. The terror of it all. The impudence of that...fellow." Callisto leaned forward to get a better view of what transpired below between the Ashfiend and the three who would stop his madness.

"So this is what an Ashfiend looks like. Not as terrifying as they shriek about."

Spreading the leathery, bat-like wings, he glided down over them, cutting the air above all their heads, to land a few paces behind the Fiend. A pale face swathed in blackness, glimmering along the uncountable number of buckles about the front of him. Along his fore-arms, arching back, razored blades flashed deadly in the firelight. Even as the wings folded, he'd slip into a bit of a crouch, offering a grin as he watched the Constable burn.

"I want to hear their shrieks. Make them scream. Make them into art!"

[Vanidor]

It was a patrol that frequented this portion of the Myrken farmlands. Now and again they had checked into the Kaczmarek farmhouse and the lands that they had farmed for their now deceased master. It was a patrol that had seen the pallid glow of fire upon the horizon, just beyond the trees that stood between their path and the collection of family huts. Aeryn was with them, this night, having decided to pay call upon Agnieszka (by surprise, if anything.) as well as speak to Dominik about an issue with the Derry Gate.

Yet here. There was a shadow of someone running upon the path, pell-mell with no concern for whatever, or whomever, would see their course. No. Not just one, but others who also rushed for the relative safety of the township. The Marshal reached down and drew Soria from the saddle-scabbard at his side. A turn, even as some of those who ran saw the naked blade and screamed in terror. He ignored their cries and turned to his men.

"Corporal Jenner. Take two others and do be escorting these folk to town. The rest of you, be following me. I have point, Ven and Darius side me. The rest follow, we move at triple speed." The nine remaining men drew sabres and a few prepared lances, and soon enough the patrol was charging through the darkness for the Kaczmarek farm.

It wouldn't be long before they were on the scene, just as flame and fire seemed to consume the Constable and the man courageously stood his ground, what looked like a pitchfork set like the deadliest boar-spear. Here then, Aeryn was bellowing battlecries not heard since Orvere, Soria raised above his head and the men who followed him... were soon left behind in his haste.

[channe]

It is not the Ashfiend's sorceries that terrify; it is not his cloak or his face. It is the thought of who is inside the huts that are burning, the fact that the Ashfiend stands between them and getting to those inside --

Rhaena falls to her knees; Magda takes a one-two stride to the girl, and remembering her eldest daughter's admonition that Rhaena knows stuff, Mama, don't worry, shakes the Trader's shoulder with one hand. "Take them," she says, and straightens, grabbing Piotr's wrist, "Piotr, take them, go!" But Piotr won't be moved, nor will Lina, and the children are watching as if they can't possibly understand what is going on, and Rhaena is faced with a panicking Magda, who is exhorting her to take the children, take Otto, go far --

Masha Dolokov has reached the Constabulary; he lays his fist against the door and his voice to wake the dead. Brannigan Cates is the first to reach the Meetinghouse; but there's nobody there, now, is there? Cinnabar took them this morning to their new quarters, and no matter how hard he knocks, only the neighbors will hear --

Dominik stumbles, with a cry, tearing at his chest with a gloved hand, beating against the flames that start at his clothes; he staggers back, hitting the ground, rolling about to extinguish them. But this is sorcerous fire, it won't stop, it won't cease, it won't stop! He burns -- his sister is fast enough, limber enough, to drop once she sees what's coming; she hits the ground, misses the brunt of it; pushes herself back up, legs like a spring, and here, Aeryn, what timing! Aeryn with Soria, and Ariane, and she adjusts; Ashfiend, a human pitchfork for you on this side, of saber and rapier and dark warhorse and burning Cinnabar Calomel, lord of these lands. And behind them? Darius and the others.

Your fortunes have just turned. They come for you, Ashfiend, the skinny murdergirl and Calomel at the first wave.

[Jirai]

Rhaena

Hatred and anger and not all of it from the Fiend - this will be an interesting fact... but later. Later, when she has a chance to think about such things. There is no such chance here now, with the hysterical Madga, the children who will not move and more shouts and screams and the anger and hatred.

She is grabbing at Magda's hand - it is an effort, for the Trader is still doing her best to shield the small group from susceptible minds. Not here, they are not here, nothing to see. She has no strength left to calm the hysterical woman. "With me, Magda." The girl manages the words and the girl is grabbing for a child. She can't carry them all, but perhaps that forcible action would stir the others to move. One could hope.