Cresting the stairs, bathed in the warmer morning air as the horizon glowed orange by the sun, Armen sighs, condensing his vitriol into a cool and articulate malice. There were hardly any people up, save for a select few individuals that meandered the road. Armen paid no mind of them, though they were quickly becoming enthralled by the scene of a human knight dragging the seeming corpse of one of their own. Either gasping or murmuring in a hushed panic. Across the way, the shrill caterwauling of a woman shreds the serene quietude of the morn. She howls in horror as she points fretfully, "MURDER!!", she bellows.
Within moments, more citizens of the town begin to stir and wake, leaving their homes to see the commotion. Many of them, stopping within their thresholds in revulsion at the scene of a scalped manolon being dragged like a hunted boar through the mud. Several of them erupt in hailing the guards, shouting and rushing around so they might find one on duty. Armen cares not, nor does he worry of the now swarming populace to interfere, as they kept a wide berth of him and his victim. He brings Crallen's still mildly conscious form to the horses, Crallen's own steed whinnied as Armen approached with his master so flayed. Armen drops the wrist he dragged and yields the reigns of the horse that reared and whined in protest at his master's decrepit state. "Still thineself, lest you join him." Armen threatens, albeit knowing and still unbothered that the horse had no idea of what he instructed. Even so, upon the reigns being held, the horse simmered down. Armen rifles through the saddle bag until he chances a rope, pulling it out. Roughly fifteen feet in length, the rough and gritty hemp he could feel through his leather palms. 'Perfect.' he minds, severing the rope in two pieces with the dagger from his boot.
He ties one segment of rope to the wrist of Crallen, then to the horn of the saddle upon one of the steeds. Then, another to his ankle, and upon the saddle-horn of Crallen's own rouncey. Crallen lifts his skull, looking between horses as his exposed eyes roll forward into more lucidity. He begins to utter, "Wh- what? WAIT!" until Armen scoops a clutch of mud and spikes it into Crallen's maw.
"STILL THAT VILE TONGUE! Naught will save you. Ye are MINE now." his shouting command delves into a hissing malice accompanied by a judgmental finger that speared at the lesser thing, while Crallen gags and coughs with the ball of earth inside his maw.
Armen directs the two horses away from each other, either of them pointed up and down the road. Drawing his blade once more, he positions the flat upon the rear of one, and his palm upon the opposite. Harboring a devious smirk behind his helm, he slaps both horses at once, the resounding clap echoing through a crowd that had stilled to watch the unfurling judgment before them. The horses rear in surprise, each roaring jets of steamy air that fumed from their nostrils and began fleeing away. They stop suddenly as the chain of rope segments, and Crallen, bind them together. Yet neither of them stay their plowing, they continue to tug and pull away from the other, panicked. Crallen's spine audibly rips apart, a dull pop as his vertebrae separate and his cord snaps. He howls, tormented by the consistent tugging that at every passing moment further ripped him in two.
A great cacophony of neighs and screams grips the crowd in a deafening roar, while Armen stands, his shoulders hunched forward and fists still clenching as he beheld his art before he, soul burning with seething vindication. Crallen's shoulder dislocates as the horses rear again and tug forward. Armen watched in hatred as Crallen continued to agonize while they pulled, until, with a final snapping tendon, his arm is torn from his torso and both horses bolt away. Dragging him through the muddy road, trailed by his ever-distancing howls.
The crowd of people that had grown much like a locust swarm stood still, hovering around Armen like they were flies. Not daring to come closer than a few steps, but still unwilling to disperse. Armen, apathetic to their prying eyes, makes his way back to the cellar, in which Mariette were waiting, likely nursing her wounds, or perhaps struck by the visage of the young man that was dead before her. As he nears the entry, the barking orders of the suddenly competent guards can be heard: "Halt! What happens here?" Armen looks upon the two lightly armored manolons and their accompanying halberds, both pointed in guard at himself. He says nothing, his glare more than enough to warrant nervous looks between the two guardsmen. Armen points into the entry, his voice steeped in animosity at their lacking workmanship, "Witness my judgment if you are so inclined. My charge is sated."
When the two men discern Armen's own race, they become nearly livid. "A HUMAN?? Wherefore do you be here? Causing trouble within our town, you do!" one of them shouts accusingly, "Thou art under arrest!" He pulls a rope that was hung to his belt and begins to step toward Armen, whom presents his wrists to the seizer. He plants a hand on Armen's shoulder and shoves him down onto his knees, aggressively wrapping the rope upon Armen's wrists. After his hands are bound as tight as the guard could muster, the other one relaxes slightly and eases his halberd back into attention against his shoulder. The guard that bound Armen kneels down to him and flicks the crown of Armen's helmet in a taunting manner, "What kind of filth has been done in that cellar, hmm? I bet it will put your throat upon the block, whatever it is, to garner a crowd as this..." He turns away and makes toward the entry, resting his polearm against the wall; he draws a short sword, readying the blade for whatever might await him within the depths. The other guard grows more anxious as his partner disappears and leaves him and Armen alone before the townspeople, despite the suspect being detained. After a few minutes of a tense silence between the guard and Armen staring each other down while a crowd watched with bated breath, the investigating manolon returns from the cellar, a deeply unsettled and almost sickly look upon his face. His eyes bearing a gruesome horror as he ignores the consistently hurled questions from his partner and stands looking down on Armen. "She told of what happened. Th.." he shudders, apparent that he could no longer hide the disgust in what he saw, "Thine badge?"
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
"My satchel upon my side. Hither..." Armen replies curtly, his head nodding to his bag slung over his shoulder. The guard rifles through the various items until he finally fishes out the medallion of the Inquisition. He looks it over, turning it within his hand, then places it back and re-laces the top flap of the satchel. His hands now shaky with a broken confidence against his suspect. He helps Armen rise to his feet again and unties the wrist-shackling knots, then returns the rope to his own belt. He treads back to his fellow and they whisper amongst each other for a moment. As quickly as they had arrived, they leave. Not once did they risk a look behind them, hoping that this misunderstanding would simply be forgotten. As a result, confusing the throng of people that witnessed the entire ordeal.
Armen descends the stairs back into the cellar, finding Mariette sitting upon the floor, her knees brought into her breast and arms wrapped around her legs. She looks at Armen as he enters, tears visibly streaking her fur, mixing with the blood and spit that marred her face. Her eyes nearly clamped shut by the rapid swelling of her bruises and beatings. Armen says nothing as he kneels next to her, he removes his glove and gingerly holds her cheek in his palm. He could feel her misery through how she looked into his visor so broken and scared. The immense rage of before now voided his chest with sorrow, the hollow feeling in himself that were only contested by the hard thrumming of his heart.
Mariette, her eyes growing further wet, begins to wail as she crashes herself into his chest. She grapples his back as she clenches around him and weeps into his tabard. Curls into herself and continues to howl against him, then with a sudden rearing, she pulls back and begins crashing her fists down onto his chest and shoulders.
"Look at that child! What you've done to him! Look at me! Look to what they've done to me! Is this what I am to expect of the world??! My own kin?! Either slaughtered by you and your kind or turned into a plaything?!" Though her eyes were swollen, anyone could easily see the terrible pain in them; the pain that wrapped her up in its own snaky coils.
Armen only looks into her, watching with a grating sorrow as she bewails her pain and frustrations upon him. Only moving to catch her as she tumbles down in varying moments of grief in between her hysterics. Again, she beats him, then she weeps. Raises her fists, then collapses into his chest. For several minutes she howls her volcanic emotions; her voice, once heard in such beauty, would now haunt Armen with her terrible lamentations. He longed to be more for her to secure upon, but he had naught. Never before were he positioned so personally with someone. He knew not of what might satisfy her raging sufferings, not of what might soothe her broken heart, her fearful shock now waning away as she is able to release emotions boiling up.
He only holds her, and as she tries to pull away again, clings her into himself. Pressing her against his breast as she struggles and tries to unfetter her rage, sobs cut in between with grunts of frustration as she pushes and resists, yet he refuses to release her. Finally, her wrath is overcome with sorrow and she returns his clutch. Clawed fingers raking down his back, picking through his tabard at the rings of mail underneath. Mariette sobs and cries into his lower chest, holding onto him like he were a chanced log in a stormy sea. Every other sob was choked on as she tried so desperately to recover herself from sinking into something worse than the terrible heartache it already were. Uttering words of absolute vexation, "Why? why, why, why,why,whywhywhywhywhy..." her words further and further devolve into idle ramblings, perhaps in the hope that moving even only her tongue might help distract from her despair.
