Flight

[Larkin]

He ran faster as the thunder shouted down at him. The rain pounded and streamed down the moss-grey wall of the rockface, and nearly falling reminded him of the dangerous ledges and slick, uneven footholds. Intermittent lightning made brief, terrifying outlines of the forest ahead. The stinging of his cheekbone angered him, and the freedom of his bolting legs invigorated him.

He was ahead of them.

He was going to make it.

He sprang, overbalanced with muscular effort, from a shelf of rock; there was no magic in his mobility, just desperation. He slammed into the dirt with a grunt and slid down the muddy hill with arched hands and scrambling heels trying to hook into the roots and dirt. Drenched hair was hanging snakelike over his face.

Another searing bolt flashed from the heart of the storm, ripping a path across the brightened rainfall.

The man lurched forward, kneedeep in freezing water, and he surged across the shallow of the pond with his filthy hands thrashing at its gleaming face. He flung himself from the water and crawled up the sharp incline; at its apex, he leapt to his feet and ran dizzily through the sparser trees. He would never be captured.

That would be the death of his imagination.

[jacktim]

"E's getting away!", one of the guards shouted, seeing the man leave their vision again. No he's not... I can still smell the fear on him, Sonoriel thought, thrashing through the woods like a madman. He was loving this, it had been weeks since he'd last chased down a victim... er... murderer. Not since his last stalking attempt at the blue bard, his newly cleaned, and sharpened axe readily swinging in his hands.

Brush and vine and trunk and limb, all these would fall away before the wicked grin of the fallen one. He would catch him, he would hold him, he would torture him, and all before he'd kill him.

"Come now, don't make this too easy!", Sonoriel jeered after the running man, launching off the edge of the same ledge, and landing with half the effort, Sonoriel didn't run for his life... he ran to take others. He would chase this one down to the very corners of the world... all for the sweet taste of the kill.

The slender man seemed to glide over the water, in the wake of the running man, on his heels, Sonoriel could already taste the blood...

[Larkin]

He flashed a wild look over his shoulder. When he saw that a man was gaining on him, Larkin's scream of derision was lost in a thunderclap. He'd seen a glimpse of broad axe carving through the dead bramble.

His boots slapped through puddles as he sped forward. Blood ran down his neck from a careless scrape on his face. He cast his eyes about frantically to pierce the rainy shadows for the best route of escape as his tall, thin body zig-zagged wildly through the trees. Flaps of torn, sodden pantleg were clinging to his limbs.

The man vividly sought a way out, the desperation in him growing by degrees as his freedom was threatened by the impending figure. Some of the guards had fallen behind, but this grinning, axe-wielding thing trailed him like a wolf - like a predator.

It was almost like the man was toying with him.

Amidst the rage and panic, a thought struck him with the force of the lightning bolts streaking the sky. He was as helpless now as his own victims had been. Every part of him rebelled against the association. He was going to make it.

He fled through the noise of the elements, branches catching on his clothes and straggles of hair. There was something black looming into his midst - something impenetrable and high.

He couldn't be caught.

He lunged at the streaming wall of rock, latching into the thick, dead vines clothing it; some of them snapped, but the thicker ones held. His body twisted frantically, and then he began to climb, reaching hand over bloodied hand. Larkin stared up into the blinding rain and shouted incoherently with effort, never looking back.

He had to be free.

[jacktim]

Toying with him? Lord no... Sonoriel was a child playing with a friend, a friend he'd personally see dead and mangled at the bottom of a pit somewhere. He scrambled up the rock face after him, climbing like some animal, a lizard or a monkey of some type. No he didn't climb up the wall... he walked up it, on all fours catching up to his prey quickly.

However... before he laid a hand upon the ankle of his new friend, he slipped, perfectly, almost too perfectly, down the rock wall, landing on his feet without a scratch. He'd have to climb up again!

He stared up the wall at the scrambling figure, he didn't care what that man had done, he didn't care who he was, all Sonoriel knew was that they were going to let him kill this man, in the name of their law. The too broad smile he bore on his face turned into an evil glare, "You can't run forever! I'll catch you before long!" He let a short pause echo out before returning to the base of the rocks and began scrambling up... faster.

[Larkin]

Another flash of lightning skinned the landscape, ripping its black hide off it so that there was no part of its anatomy not exposed.

Sonoriel was not a man. Sonoriel was a Thing. Or so this man thought, amidst his swiftly diminishing hope, as a strong hand reached for his jerking ankle. Larkin cried out in rage and terror, just before his pursuer slid back down the wall. From his swivelled eye-corner, it looked like a fall to him.

There was still hope. He was going to make it.

He clawed the top of the cliff as the executioner sped back up the wall as though it were nothing - as though its jagged edges and cumbersome vines helped him, as though the rainfall nourished his strength. Larkin nearly lost his footing, but he finally managed to tumble onto the ledge at the top. Thunder-peals seemed to shake the world.

He staggered from the edge of the small cliff and nearly gagged with the force of his hammering heart, as it felt like the thing was lodged in his throat. Not even the heavy rain could wash the scent of fear from him. It was a stain.

If he thought that he could bribe the man, he'd have tried it, but the madness that he saw was a lucid reflection that had nothing to do with wealth ..

Larkin bent over double as he ran along a slippery slope and ripped the crude knife from his boot, clutching it tightly in his fist.

He would kill to stay free.

[jacktim]

With the speed at which he had scaled the wall, he only had to walk the last ten steps, freeing his hands up to gain a better grasp on his axe. Stepping onto the ledge as easy as he was walking up a step. He casually licked his thumb and ran it along the edge of the axe, drawing in a pleased breath as he felt the keen edge draw the top layer of skin off. He grinned again and cast a casual look around for the new victim.

"I know you're here... I can smell your scared stench. Don't worry... your poor mortal life will be ended soon enough," he gave slight snicker silenced by the thunder as another lightning strike hit behind him. "Come out, come out, wherever you aaaarrrreeee!" He began to toy, a malicious innocence in his words.

[Larkin]

Several feet ahead, Larkin whirled around and stumbled to the side so that a tree no longer obscured him. The rain made his curved knife gleam. His bony shoulders heaved up and down with rage and exhaustion; his limbs were aching and bleeding from sliding on the rocks and falling. It was not that he was tired of running, so much as a belief that Sonoriel would not be lost amidst the trees - that Sonoriel would remain close on his heels until Larkin fell to the ground without a fight.

Come out, come out, taunted the executioner, and so he did.

The filthy man snarled and ran toward him with his knife raised and slashed wildly at him, cutting through the rain. He was driven by need and fear, stumbling slightly in the splashing puddles.

[jacktim]

It took only a moment for the fallen one to realize where the attacker was coming from. He dances out of the way as the first volley of slashes narrowly miss his red cloak. The plates and rings below it, clinking softly, stifled by the folds.

He grinned evilly underneath the hood, the folds of his cloak drift lazily behind him. The trails of water rolling down it creating the illusion of the veins and structures you'd find in bat wings. He lashes out with the handle of his axe, with the aim for the man's knee cap.

[Larkin]

Larkin saw sharp sparks as the handle slammed into his knee. He cursed loudly and fell to the ground with the agonized buckling of his leg. Mud flew from his hair when he jerked his head back and thrashed to gain his footing again; the knife, having only tasted a whisper of Sonoriel's cloak, jabbed at him in wild desperation.

[jacktim]

The jab of the dagger caught Sonoriel off guard, but only so far as to chink against the plates of metal hidden well beneath his cloak. Sonoriel dove off to the side, rending his cloak, and pulling up the handle of his axe aiming to bash his victim in the face.

[Larkin]

Larkin was certain that something shattered when the handle of the axe slammed into his face; there was a thuddy sound of crunching cartiledge and bone, and the thin man went sprawling in the mud with his face smeared in fresh, gushing blood.

He saw bright, white stars for a moment, and his dagger wavered in his grip; he was like a wounded animal, ready to strike out blindly if he must, his knuckles white with the ferocity of his grip. The dagger was meager in comparison to Sonoriel's slick, gleaming axe.

He tried to stand but fell again, writhing in the filth at the executioner's feet.

[jacktim]

... Rang out the executioner's voice. He lifted a heavy boot and pressed the prey's face even further into the mud, "Taste the free earth one last time, for it will be your last time, mortal." He gave a chuckle and pressed in again. Before striking Larkin with the butt of his axe.

"What in the hells have happened here?" the lead guard said coming upon the mess at the scene, Larkin's blood already mixing with the water in the mud.

"I caught him, he resisted, I stopped him." Sonoriel said calmly, applying little or no pressure to the back of Larkin's head. "Well... alright then boys... Let's haul him back..."

"NO!" Sonoriel shouted out, he gave a light cough as the guards looked at him, "I mean... no thanks... I've got him, he won't be putting up a fight with me."

"I'm sorry executioner... But rules are rules, and the rules say that no man is to bring in a prisoner alone, especially murderous heathen like this one," the guard nodded sagely. You could only be insuborinate so much each day. Sonoriel felt it would be best not to resist them any more for now. Although one would be false in thinking that he didn't think a few guards getting *lost* in the woods wouldn't be a hard thing to accomplish around here....

Near an hour's work later, Larkin was suitably in the Gaol, set into his own cell, away from anyone else that might be around, guard and inmate alike. Save for a few members of the Guard itself, few seemed braved enough to venture across to the cell that day.