HereComesTheSnow

Blades of Iron Roses: An Anime-Inspired Knight RP

Gerard Segremors

@Conscripts@Raineh Daze

It means I'm not as dumb as I look.

Whatever contact the armored butcher may have expected, in what mind he could speak to beneath that ugly pig's helm, what he received was feather-light on his guard. Gerard had sold the preparatory motions, but not the full shift of weight through the arc— he was never going to get that lucky to begin with, but given the ideas already in his foe's head from their shared history?

Surviving long as he had on the battlefield had honed the Boar's speed, even beneath his shell of tempered iron, as well as any other. The reprisal came immediately out of the same motion that brought his hammer haft into guard, a sequence that had caved countless Verloren skulls. Men like the knight before him, only half a year ago—

Who had already disappeared from the space, ducking low as he dodged to the side the moment he drew the reaction out. The swing flew past by an inch or two, rushing wind grazing his scarred cheekbone— if he hadn't already been moving when it came, it would have clocked him cold, sallet or no. Half a year ago, he very well may have died.

This man expected the aggression, expected the vitriol to take his senses, expected him to throw his whole being into every blow. He'd seen it from Gerard's ilk, time and again. Reckless, wild, overwhelming—

A flash in his mind, of the towering silhouette that buried blade and axe into his bones.

—and stopped by a brick wall all the same. There was likely nobody better the Knights had, then, to sell the feint. But feinting alone wouldn't knock a castle gate down.

When sieging heavy fortifications... you brought the battering ram.

Surging forth from the smoke as though fired from ballistae and filling the void Gerard had left, Sir Steffen bore down upon the Black Iron Pig, spear flashing, shield braced to bowl him over. Gerard's mind raced as he pivoted his strong side back into the exchange, now at the flank, sensing something wrong with their enemy's balance from the arc the swing had taken— There!

He swung again, as the gleam of rime drew the eyes to the compromised leg the boar suddenly needed to favor, crossguard every bit as good a hook as it was a hammer. If he could take out a balance point, hook or knock in a knee or ankle from the back, the pig's hopes of bracing into and checking Sir Steffen would be dead in the water!

The Lion's Banner: A Fire Emblem-Inspired Anime Fantasy RP

István Shilage

@Psyker Landshark

The symbol of endlessness continued to swirl through the grounds in even tempo, as the stone-carved face (more a gargoyle than kingly bust) held its tongue until the assassin had finished with hers. He'd known better than to believe the hustle of campaign to have fully shaken that moment from her mind— she worked with enough professionalism that a background of some covert capacity seemed to almost be the only reasonable choice. She was no bloodthirsty murderer-zealot to a foreign church of death, nor did she share the naked avarice of, say, their mutual associate in Urden. To the eyes of those in the sphere that would need watch for them, the guess had come naturally. This was merely confirmation. Any lesser blade that cloaked itself in shadow would have preened and accepted the misidentification as praise.

"Your point is quite apparent," he rumbled, a dull earthen eye sliding over to meet her gaze as he worked through his ritual. Assessment of the goings on from the northlands was on today's itinerary, leaving he and his ward with the thankless task of remote counsel and administration to look forward to for the coming hours. As the years continued to pass, he found his mornings had grown to see him wake a little duller than he liked. Given the circumstances of the fief's chain of command at present, he didn't need to go and advise a misstep off the back of a clouded mind.

A calm smile spread over his face, light enough to avoid registering as mockery. Regardless of his reasonable safety (her wariness of investigations would prove well-founded, should the boy suddenly find cause to bring the weight of the Demet fiefdom onto her head), he had no need to further antagonize a Potential Asset.

"As one such ambitious man, I would be remiss not to remember when hands are shown or lines drawn."

Much. There was one thing he had noticed in between the pointed, knife-shaped subtext. Something that had piqued his interest. He turned to face her fully, as steam wafted forth from the spout of the kettle in his hand. Warmth radiated against his knuckles.

"Now that you've further clarified where we both stand, I have to say: How lucky our host and her swiftly rising star must be, that those interested parties above are no longer privileged by your service. To your clandestine point, I imagine it must be quite the rare thing to find one's way out of their employ and into another's."

It wasn't like she could have feasibly aged out of the position and retired. There were more cards to coax onto the table, but he wouldn't be getting them here.

Blades of Iron Roses: An Anime-Inspired Knight RP

Gerard Segremors

@Conscripts@Krayzikk@ERode@VitaVitaAR

True to the black-armored hulk's wishes, Gerard had heard him well before he saw him— and darted to the side as the earth was split beneath the brutal meteor that fell from above, all thunder and bellowed challenge. The man's voice rang from within his armor like an ugly bell, but the timbre, the laughter... something about it made Gerard's grip run tighter, just so.

His eyes caught the gold trimming, as his sword entered the wake between both the enemy's swing and his own movement—

The face of a boar revealed itself from the gloom next, cast on that black iron. With it, stains of red. Mangled limbs, crushed skulls, torn masks, Johann, Rykerd, Haland—

He knew this man.

"They're dead!"

Within the dominant angle, Gerard obliged, lightning cracking through his body. A mighty swing of his blade cleft the air between them, careening into the visor, ready to smash through that infinitesimal gap that allowed vision—

But the rise of the hammer back into the Boar's guard saw him turn his lead shoulder in, the curved, thick plate of steel all but a fortress wall to the knight's well-kept, but ultimately mundane longsword and strength.

The shock, having bounced off the armor like so many of his former peers' had back in the day, traveled up through his arms and spine, a reminder that no picture could ever capture the depth of. Another thunderbolt came from above, transposing the image of a vicious smirk beneath the depths of the man's helm in the night. Killing intent leaked out like a sieve—

But hadn't it always?

As he was forced back, the knight's racing mind caught up with the scene before him.

The Butcher. The Shieldbreaker. Ogre. Many epithets had swirled around the bastard beneath the plate, as mercenary worlds so frivolously bestowed them, so often— The myth eclipsed the man. His name was an obscurity— perhaps cast off, perhaps of no note. For all Gerard knew, they were self-proclaimed.

A ragged breath escaped him, as he pulled his blade back into a sturdy, reactive guard— interposing the bar of steel between him and his foe. His ears told him his peers within the wedge they'd formed were similarly tied, that he'd not been pulled completely away.

"The Faceless are dead." the next breath escaped as a tight snarl, rather than the snapping roar. "Regiment's dissolved. You're behind the times, Pig."

He had indeed killed many of Gerard's former comrades personally. This hulking specter of the past had loomed across the battlefield against the Faceless, against their Forlorn Company, dozens of times— in a way emblematic of the checkered past he and the Boars had shared.

The beast's march continued, each lumbering footfall heavy as the hammer. For that armor to be as familiar a visage as this, Gerard could assume that the other man felt at home in it— and that it wasn't any great coincidence that his blade had skirted off its heft. Full harness was all but impenetrable with the blade he had, when leveraged smartly.

His eyes narrowed, and he shifted his grip.

It was a rare Boar that built up that kind of experience from entirely within the company. One of the most prevalent tales regarding this one was that he was an alum of the Cazt rebellion, having thrown in with the Boars while the getting was still good. A once-knight of the realm at some juncture, who'd slipped through the cracks and thrown in with the worst of the lot. That he'd sacrificed any shred of dignity he could still claim by deserting even the traitor, let alone his country, his people, his duty to protect.

"You're fighting the Iron Roses."

His left hand slid down the length of the blade, coming to a halt some third of the way down from the tip. His right clenched around the ricasso, beneath the crossguard.

The weight in his hands was good. Where a swinging edge failed, a mordhau would ring with much, much more impact. Fighting was the leveraging and taking of yours and your opponent's tools. Armor checked his blade, hammering strikes sent shocks through the steel. The reach and weight of the great hammer made it deadly at longer distance. The leverage and dexterity of halfswording made for a good can opener in tight. He just needed to get there, now...

He raised his guard, digging his heel into the earth. This was intersection.

A knight, fallen to hellish depths. A blackguard to the core, relishing only bloodshed and tolerating every evil, who had cast aside his sacred duty. No honor left in his soul. None there to give him.

A mercenary, climbing out of them. Fighting every day to prove he was worthy of the blessings that came with a chance to be more. No reason to fight like a dullard. No reason to keep being one, and leave advantage on the table.

Utterly antithetical to eachother. As if designed to be equivalent, and opposite. Perfect checks to the path each advanced through.

He swung high, forcing a reaction lest the snout of the helm cave in on his opponent's face—

But I've got a lot further to go than you, you piece of shit.

"Nobody else— Nico, get his joints!"

Blades of Iron Roses: An Anime-Inspired Knight RP

Gerard Segremors

@Conscripts@Krayzikk@ERode

This was a new sensation.

Not the blood on his tongue, nor the burning line he'd gained across the jaw, no. Many times he'd been pockmarked in the frenzy, been gifted small reminders of how far away the ideal he chased really was, and how truly stopgap a measure his methods to win until he got there had proven to be. Nor was the rise of wind washing the fire away as he took a breath into his belly, the hammering of his heartbeat in his eardrums. The swordplay always took him like this in the thick of it, taught him to push pain into a corner where it didn't leave (it never would) as much as was kept out of the way. It ran hot in his muscles, in his spine, in somewhere rawer than considered technique. Hammered mechanics, writ large on his frame. He knew this feeling well.

Sir Steffen's admonishment didn't fall on deaf ears, but he bit back his acknowledgement as sparks flew, a pair of longswords colliding in front of him. His, humble, biting into the edge of the man opposite, ornate outside the means suggested by the brigandine on his torso. Trophy, probably.

A clarion call to glory from Dame Serenity and flying mass to their right, snapping them out of the bind as the dark shape of a stricken hound crashed into the man at the latter's flank. His foe leapt into the open space, oberhau sailing towards his collar, his neck, the temple beneath his sallet.

The swordplay was taking him. Nothing new.

A chill of frost, unseasonable in the summer night. Sharpness on the wind at his back. He responded in kind, crushing distance with the same strike to defend, resetting the prior exchange. Habitually, Gerard would wind up to ochs here, lining up the stab down the gorget the moment he felt the blades press into one another.

On the length of his blade, Gerard felt the pressure shift, momentarily, and rise.

It did not see him lost, this time.

In the chaos, the space between breaths was enough to paint a picture. A flash in the mind, his foe mirroring him in that old "kill them quickly" favorite standby— going for the throat in the second layer of the exchange. If they had met when they shared professions, it was probable only athletic gulfs would have earmarked who would be left standing.

He could look further than that.

His body had learned that deeper still, there were third, and fourth.

He wrenched his own higher as he drove in, short edge whipping around as the oncoming thrust skirted along the bar of his crossguard. Both swords hanging, stuck in contact after paired winds, his bearing down over the upper, weak edge of his foe's—

And with nothing but cloth to guard the Boar's legs, the mutieren found its mark, steel finding the artery of the femur as the bloodsoaked knight forced his strength down.

The body was cold before the rime took him.

"She's right," he growled, falling into the wedge behind Sir Nicomede's furious dance of spada and sleet. Presence was a good thing, but he hadn't time to gawk at keeping a head on the shoulders within his fury. His eyes had already locked upon a straggler, scampering away into the brush and well beyond reach. "The Pigs run their band like a cult— those at the back aren't booking it, they're carrying news! The good hunting's bound to be past the treeline!"

A lunge to the right, inky blur rocketing to Nicomede's throat as he tore through the line before them—

Intercepted by a cleaving half-moon and a grunt from the Shilagean, as his blade tore through the jaw of the hound, never to close again and spread its curse. Once the initial suprise of what they were capable of wore off, even strong, bewitched dogs were dogs.

As the weight driving behind the very tip of the spear, there were few places that better suited Gerard than here at Sir Nicomede's flank. The four of them would tear through in short, short order.

The Lion's Banner: A Fire Emblem-Inspired Anime Fantasy RP

István Shilage

@The Otter

"The thought occurred to me, once or twice," came the mirthful yet muffled grindstone timbre, as the hulk's advance paused to see his neck crane beneath the greathelm, tilting ears high, eyes high. Beneath the clamor of both forces' cries of war, the symphony of steel and flame, there was... thrumming. Twanging. This skirmish was an orchestra of percussion, voice, and brass— not haggard strings. Irian's bow sang a deeper chord, one melding with the dull roar. These were stark, acrid, and rushed. Assembling to a time, not yet to a tune.

"But to stop a heart without making good on the fear struck as... merciful."

He spat the word, as the dull earthen disks within the shadowed visor honed in on a fallen array of stars, points of caught firelight in the smoke. He raised the castle gate on his left arm as he stepped forth, two, three, and four impacts biting into the metal and wood. Not preternaturally accurate in their haste to mount a proper check to the sudden offensive, not mobile enough to vanish like ghosts in the wake of their scattered steeds...

"Swiftly now. They rally." he grunted, affirmed by the little Princess's sharp calls from the direction of the scattershot arrows.

The boy was schooled as well as he— hell, even the merchant likely knew well enough not to leave coordinated archers to their devices.

He pushed forth beneath the barrier of his shield, ears, and eyes, obscuring as much movement between the encampment's tents as a big man was ever able. Morahti were little more than amoral raiding folk on their best day, but their mettle would surely exceed those of lowly thugs. They would assemble what structure they could from within the chaos— but the raid wouldn't leave them much room to breathe and adapt beyond basic formations, their skirmishers tying up the front while the better archers among them either softened things or picked off strays from the rear.

Swinging around and pressing them from the other side was a natural progression of things— a moment to seize with the tempo, before their enemies could find their feet underneath it. Splitting their attention would halve their potency, leaving either edge of the Lions free to mop up.

The Lion's Banner: A Fire Emblem-Inspired Anime Fantasy RP

István Shilage

The clamoring of the world's animals in the face of Mayon, and her silvered, gentle grace was nothing new, all told. Many beasts of certain nobility called into the night— owls, intelligent and dignified, or the noble and loyal wolves, for instance, cast their voices into the night regularly at little more than a stone's throw from the reach of human civilization. The act itself was not debased, yet...

A bubbling hiss rose from the corpse of the slaver at his feet, who had been woken from a drunken stupor by his second and third ribs crumpling. Before he could reach for a blade, Istvan's most recent patronage of the Company Merchant had found a new home, splashed across his brow, and even through the haze of alcohol, a beaten dog could scream as loud as any creature of the night. The language was garbled through pain. A falling Meteor silenced it in short order, as the tower of black iron turned his gaze to the disarray ahead.

In Morahti tongues, "surrender" was not a word worth learning. It meant willfully giving yourself to their particular arm of conquest, to conscription as a slave, to theft of all your property. Death, by any measure, would have been preferable, even with allowance for some supposed cultural understanding of "fair play" on the end of the speaker. The young Earl and he had long been given cause to familiarize themselves with the vulgar language of these raiders— supposedly, such a term did exist for them...

Another, collapsed to his knees, ahead, gaze worlds away in shock. Behind him, a third warrior, this one with wits about him rushing to protect his fellow from the oncoming storm of the Lions— doubtlessly seeking to rouse the former into fighting shape.

"Surrender" wouldn't leave their lips, surely.

Not in any language Shilage had heard.

His march continued.

Blades of Iron Roses: An Anime-Inspired Knight RP

Gerard Segremors

@Conscripts@Krayzikk

"They" were still here, cried the curse-weaver, demanding praise atop praise for her mysteriously-divined insight. As ad-hoc lookout patrol, Gerard's circuit of the vague perimeter the trio had set kept him within earshot, more or less— surreptitious exchanged whispers were lost on him, but it was enough room for either party hear at a yell. Her cocksure braying counted for that much.

Steel slipped from leather over the shoulder, as Gerard's free hand drew a circle to the pair behind him. Perimeter. If any one or two of them could respond to an emergence on either flank, their chances of allowing the Roses to be caught on the back foot would be much, much slimmer.

Those that slipped out from the gloom, however... Well, Clarice was, again, loud— her surprise was emblematic enough. The Cazt heiress and her retainer out here? That raised suspicion, even if she asserted that she'd not shown up as their enemy. Her intent was enigma, but Clarice had revealed that Alette's band was under her employ to begin with.

As well,

"Movement— NORTH TREELINE!" he howled, snapping his blade into a tight ochs guard as he dug his heels into the soil beneath, letting oncoming war sharpen his senses, sharpen his movement, sharpen his breath.

All that squawking had also revealed that those two weren't the ones she'd sensed loitering, else she wouldn't have been so surprised. Luckily for her, the instincts of the Roses cohort were a little sharper— a little more focused on the task at hand.

The hounds at the front, cloaked in a black haze and nightmarishly ugly, were already lunging forward, chewing up distance with wild abandon. Judging from their name, it was easy to expect curses on their breath. Don't get bitten by bared fangs. The Boars close behind, gaining until they drew even.

The wolf surged forth to meet them, trusting those at his back to fall in and drive weight behind his speartip, every bit a biting fang himself. There was a point to be made here, about straying from knightly temperance, sure, but hell— it was the Pigs. This was an occasion— why not bust out the Doppelsoldner routine, for old times' sake?

The charges collided, and Gerard threw himself into the mayhem.

He swung his blade in the wake of a jolt to the side, gladius skirting the edge of the plates near his midsection, rewarding him with a dark spray as the pig fell forward onto his shield, staining the gilded filigree crimson. An axe flashing in the moonlight, drawing a silver blur as it crashed downwards from overhead— shoulder-checked as the knight dashed well inside the arc of the swing, a pommel slamming into his windpipe. As he fell, gagging, Gerard reached for the knife on his torso bandolier—

Only for his arm to flash high, framing a guard of his throat as one of the hounds lunged for his carotid.

Reon, this damn thing was like a vise!

He jerked back, trying to wrench his arm free, but a hellish snarl was all that escaped from the Hound's maw— and the sound of creaking metal.

It was gonna chew through treated steel if he let it—

Once, twice, he brought that same pommel down on to its skull, smashing at the snout hard enough that he felt the impact through his own body again—

No dice. He stunned it each moment, but he had to kill it—

A flash from his peripheral, flying steel through the air— they were trying to kill him in the meantime.

He whirled leftward, sword arm stuck on the other side of his body—

And was rattled to his teeth as the mighty crash of a warhammer, swung fully in both hands by one of the burlier of the mercenaries' number, broke something. Through the rush of battle, so much pain had already fallen away that his arm was already likely half-numb—

"Shit, you're kidding!"

But that moment of disbelief as jaw fell limply from his gauntlet, as the Boar realized he'd shattered it and not Gerard's skull in the confusion, gave Gerard enough time to send the knife hurtling into his shoulder, disabling him.

He looked down.

The hound, even after all that, still had movement left in its body— its jaw was twitch as its shape began to clome back to—

With a snarl, the heel of his boot slammed into its neck, meteorically driving the sabaton down until he felt a snap.

Limp.

He drew in one ragged breath—

And met the furious roar of the Boar, having ripped the knife free from his now-limp arm and charged again, with a murderous stroke through the clavicle, tip of his blade nicking the throat. The other man fell, icepick grip faltering as the point met Gerard's pauldron. Spiteful fucker.

No time to waste.

He scooped up his knife and returned it from the bandolier as another knight fell upon the next closet boar and dispatched them, buying him enough of a moment to return it to his bandolier, and snatch the forgotten warhammer from the earth.

Simple make. One end blunt and heavy, the other hooked and sharp like the beak of some bird of prey.

It smashed through hard things pretty good— there were more hounds on the field, and more boars decked in better armor than these schmucks— closer to his own. That one Commander's was better.

It'd do.

No time to waste. He stepped forth to the whirlwind again, as from somewhere behind, a dirge began to play—

Amy?

Maybe. He didn't know.

It was making their reactions slower. Set him up to parry, to cut, to crush, to carve apart, to kill. Kill every last goddamn slaver that was put before him, with all their cultish fervor.

They would be dulled. He would be yet sharper, as the knights tore through them.

That was all that mattered.

Blades of Iron Roses: An Anime-Inspired Knight RP

Gerard Segremors

@Conscripts@Krayzikk

The unspoken prayers rung out in chorus, so many of the Order devotees of the paired divines honored here. Gerard, for his part, had always found it odd that the Silver Stones were so much closer to his predominantly Reonite home than the Golds, off on the other end of the country— but maybe it was meant to be that way. Ancient shrines standing to remind that the pair were inseparably intertwined— following the teachings of one never excluded the other.

I hate to trespass hallowed ground so fired up, Lady Mayon, but I promise it isn't irreverent. Not like the pigs we're hunting. If you'll watch over us, we'll rip this bad omen out of your shrine before you know it.

"Took the words right out of my mouth, Sir Steffen," the former mercenary chuffed as he dismounted, shaking the ride out of his thankfully sturdy legs— half a lifetime's marching had conditioned them enough that a day's ride hadn't sapped him so completely as to be useless out here, however he lagged behind in cavalry experience."I'll focus the north edge. Riding in from the east like this, it'd be natural to try and encircle us from the flanks. They're dumb, Boars, but they ain't braindead."

With that, the wolf shut up, watched, and listened as he began to walk.

They had to have known that they'd be tailed here the moment one of their number got killed in the massacre at the fort— from what their short debrief had gone over, it seemed the depiction of the Stones had been pretty widespread among those disguised. They had to know someone was gonna pick up the scent— whether or not they'd expected Roses didn't matter.

The wind shifted, sending the branches that ringed the edges of the clearing to sway in the lowering light. The shadows cast on the far side from Cae Mayl flickered and danced like arms of shadow, growing longer by the minute as Reon's warmth sank overhead. That was where evil lurked— the dark that Reon cast aside, that Mayon gave the weary a haven from. That was where he'd find them, preparing to spring their trap.

His gaze locked onto the gloom, below the dancing canopy, searching for those shadows he was certain he'd find, flitting from trunk to trunk.

He'd need his night eyes before long anyway— focusing on the shining stones or glimmering pool or dancing foliage would dull the vision.

He believed his instincts when they told him that they were going to be welcomed by far less respectful interlopers all too soon.

The Lion's Banner: A Fire Emblem-Inspired Anime Fantasy RP

István Shilage

"Sounds like a real laugh."

Thunder rumbled from somewhere behind the "unlikely" duo of merchant and lordling, heavy footfalls upon the stone leagues removed from Kayliss's quiet floating. A small cohort had surrounded his charge now, each stranger than the last, but such was the state of affairs beneath their banner— a cornucopia of backgrounds, skillsets, and lives caught in the rising net of the Hraesleg. Good tidings for the future, that of the soldiers among them—

But Better Tidings Still came in the name of the foe their many directions had now converged upon. Morahti— savory upon the tongue, and tinged with copper. The pair that had marched down from the North, in their long years of study, had grown very familiar with the idiosyncrasies of their customs— rite of conquest being one thing, but shamefully, their blase attitude on slavery rendered them abominable.

Pleas for mercy would be difficult to hear in pitched fighting.

"We'd gladly make use of it."

Blades of Iron Roses: An Anime-Inspired Knight RP

Gerard Segremors

@VitaVitaAR@VahkiDane

"No." he grunted evenly, fingers closing on a fragment of paper, almost unfelt beneath the leather and steel. "I learned a lot from my past life, but mercenary work doesn't lend itself to asking too many questions. If it did, I may have turned out smarter."

Pulling it free, he turned the crumpled mass over in his hand to reveal plain text in smudged, faded ink. Smeared by travel? Sweat from the exertion once the calamity hit? Hard to say, but the contents were, more or less, legible. Their unclarity wasn't rooted in physical tampering.

"Got something." he breathed, rising to his feet to bring it over to the light, where his partner stood. "Some kind of symbology here. Looks like a gate, almost— couple of standing stones."

Those last two words rung familiar, somehow. Gerard's brow furrowed. Standing Stones, Standing Stones, Standing Stones...

"Has to be a landmark. And not too far, if they're meaning to squirrel it away with all that risk and subterfuge."

He leaned on his memory, scouring his mind for what matched those twin pillars, smooth as though thrown in a great river.

At the thought of "water", something he didn't care for clicked. His companion was more of a Mayonite than he— if he could verify the thought, this was a lead.

"Isn't there a shrine around here like this?"