Something I've been working on, was going to be my entrance to writing comp but i decided it wasn't up to par...



At first all she saw was a shadowy blur, the world seemed incredibly dark and indistinct, at least that of it which wasn't cut by painfully bright flashes of light that played over her as they moved, for she was sure she was moving now, and surrounded by other blurry figures. she tried to remember how she'd come to be here, but those memory's she pulled up were useless, sharp incredibly vivid imagines, but with no context and no way to place anything in any sort of order, a quite common aftereffect of taking far to many raw kithri crystals at once.

She knew she'd been running, and known she'd been forced to fight, and probably lost. Once again she forced her eyes open, briefly wondering how they'd been closed again, this time the world came into focus, along with a dull throbbing almost all over her body. she felt a surge of relief, for she had expected to awake to pure agony, whoever had saved her had obviously dosed her with something. she looked up at the blurry figure above her, who's face suddenly became sharply distinct. He was human, atleast as far as she could make out, and his gaze swung slowly down to meet hers, then he looked back up and his mouth opened, speaking words comically slow to some comrade, and then a bottle was at her lips, and some foul substance took a forever to make its way across her tongue, she wondered briefly why everything moved so slowly, then she remembered that kithri crystals made almost every narcotic in existence have strange and seemingly random side effects.

First there was a burning sensation where the mixture had first touched her tongue, then a flash of numbness ran over her body, she lapsed back into unconsciousness almost immediately.

Private varsrhi stared down at the battered form on the stretcher he bore before him, bandages wrapped her head, where there was a nasty gash, one of dozens on her body, her right arm and left leg were splinted, but none of this what was made this woman so interesting, no that was the wings, or what remained of them, one looked like someone had partially hacked through it with a sword, the other was a mass of charred mangled flesh, she was a total wreck, she even appeared to have been near the point of starvation before she was attacked.

Frankly he was surprised she'd survived the journey from where they'd found her lying in the middle of three dozen dead culthori, which had either been burned or been hacked to pieces by incredibly heavy blows, several of them appeared to have been nailed to the ground with javelins, however there chests and plate armor were caved in like they been hit by a giant.
They'd found marks of many more one of the trackers had said they'd captured a prisoner of some kind and then just disappear, probably teleported out, the common consensus among the men was that the priests had grabbed someone then burggerd off and left there guards to be massacred by... Something.... That it had been a massacre he had no doubt, the scene had put so many of the troops on edge, but Varsrhi was simply glad he didn't have the fight those crazy bastards himself.

Hours passed in a thankfully uneventful blur, there prisoner for lack of anything better Varshi could label her as awoke several times, only to again be knocked out by his sergeant and his mysterious brew, by the time they finally walked though the gate of fort Nulberg he was wondering about that brew, but the sad sight of the fort drew his mind away. It was a wooden palisade wall around a semi permanent military encampment, it was surrounded by a moat, that in most places was just a bog, the 'gate' as they referred it was a rough log bridge that could be cranked up to close the gap in the walls, it was perhaps the only point along the wall where the moat was actually deep enough to submerge someone, the southern and western walls of the fortress were hard against a tree line, many trees actually towered over the walls, the rest was more or less surrounded by a swampy bog, the palce stank of sewage, and rotting vegetation, more of the latter.

It was perhaps the worst encampment Varshi had ever served in, there commander had simply placed by encampment in the first bit of dry ground he'd found, various other laziness and incompetence had led to encampment to the state it was in now, there had been fresh water at hand, it was now polluted by the latrines, someone had begun clearing trees at one point, but it stopped the second the palisade had been completed, the quality of the troops within however reflected there surroundings, the walls if anything kept deserters in more then enemies out, it might have worked, if not for the polluted water supply, on a almost regular basis water gangs were sent out, about half the men sent returned.

This was only the beginning, the troops had been press ganged from among the poor of the cities, many were criminals, many more were simply unfit for the work, there commander had a even lower view of these men then Varshi apparently, for he'd locked himself in the log cabin that was central to the encampment, he'd not left it for a month or so, at times Varshi wondered if there commander still even lived, for he certainly didn't command.

No command here more or less fell to gangs formed from the more hardened or intelligent criminals, and there were several such gangs in this fortress, enemies from long before this doomed military venture, they sat barely an arrow shot from each other, and one bad word from a blood bath, order and chain of command had well and truly evaporated, Varshi was glad to be among one of the few real military units there. They may not be respected or obeyed by the gangs, to the point that they actually ran a slavery ring out of the north eastern end of the fortress, but varshi was well and truly confident of his units ability to massacre all of those untrained savages that surrounded them.

Varshi almost laughed seeing his sergeant pull the woman's blanket up to cover her wings, this wasn't a nice place, and varshi knew several myths about the eating of winged people providing various ability's, immortality among them.
They made it through the encampment without anyone paying any real notice to them, back to his units allocated place, which was a small fortified camp within the encampment, a deep ditch surrounded it on four sides, dozens of wooden spikes stuck from the earth all around this little island of safety in this cesspool of an encampment, as they finally set her down to the relative safety of his units enclosure he asked his sergeant.
"So, who do we take her to?"
His sergeant was a man with very little hair left, most of that grey, he was apparently in his late forties, but seemed older to Varshi, whatever his appearance the man was fit, he wore multiple layers of chain-mail, and at his belt rested a war hammer that had odiously seen alot of use, his question was met with wheezing laughter.
"Name a single bloody living officer in this bloody hellhole who got a rank higher then me, i bloody dare you."
Varshi actually put effort into it, but only for a moment, damn, was it really that bad?
", your right... so..."
The old man gave him a glare, but answered.
"We wait till she wakes up... or dies, then we ask her what those mazrek worshiping bastards were doing here, then we let her go, and its no more of our ing problem. Ah dammit get that healer, trass.. trul... trugg... gah that bastard who works for the vorral gang, bring him here."
"Sir, they wont.."
"TAKE HIM. Don't be bloody seen, that way we can kill the bastard after, and noone need ever know of our 'guest'. Oh and its your bloody problem, you ask all these questions bout what were gunna do with her? Well what I'm gunna do is hand Her off to you! your bloody problem, you voulenteered." With that his immediate superior left.
Varshi stared down at the young woman on the stretcher, once he might of argued such an order, a year ago definitely, but here he was surrounded by scum. Morals eroded very quickly when noone around you was worth treating with respect, this encampment had killed a part of varshi, the part with a cuase, a goal, a purpose, the part that cared.
He looked around, and taking a page from his commander he volunteered two men to help him. "taal, vok, comon we needs grab us something from under the vorrals noses."
as he left, subconciously checking his weapons, he took one last look back at the woman, now being carried into a tent. Well, he had a purpose, for now atleast.

The kidnapping itself was more or less uneventful, on the trip back however he found himself surrounded by mud caked figures that had simply rose out of the bog that comprised most of the camp, if they had immediately attacked, it would have been a almost perfect ambush, and Varshi cursed himself for walking blindly into it.
Thus Varshi found himself surrounded by an unknown number of assistants, in pitch black darkness, standing in mud that came up past his knees, well, atleast the last part he was used to.
Varshi scanned the figures he could make out, from what he could see none of them were armored, or had any sign of a uniform under the mud. Not memebers of the gangs then, but what, the draftees, those who had been pulled form the lowest echelons of his society, Most of them would do anything to be out of this camp, only Varshi and those other true soldiers, those of warrior bloodlines, and to a lesser extent the gangs kept them here, trapped so this would seem like a real army. As that last thought passed through his head he had a sinking feeling, might this be some sort of revenge? need they fear traveling there own camp at night for muddied figures rising behind them with blades?

It didn't matter he realized, another mission, just another unexpected twist, some joke of a god, didnt think youd have to kill any of your country men today did you varshi.... Dammit.
"What do you wan't?" Varshi asked, doing his best to sound like he was being pestered by a child instead of surrounded by men with swords.
"Yer armor, an yer weapons, wearing dat armor we can walk strait out the main gate, no questions, no troubles." came a voice from the darkness to his left, Varshi added the man to his silent tally, 2 ahead 3 to the left, 4 to the right.
One of his companions snorted, Varshi phrased it nicely into words. "not going to happen, skulk back into the darkness, while i still haven't got a good look at any of you.."
"Arrogant pick, your surrounded!" One behind, varshi silently counted.
"We've got crossbows." And number 4 to the left.
Varshi had one moments glance back at the bag that lay in the middle of him and his companions, holding an unconscious healer and most 9of the mans cabinet of supplies, as he did so he considerd informing his assailants that mud coated crossbows were useless, but then he found his hand moving, grabbing a short hafted axe form his belt, as the world seemd to simultaneously explode into motion and crawl to a stop, his hand darted forward, the base of the axes haft smashing into the first mans face, with a squelch and a sickening crack, and then the man was falling back, dead, or doomed to drown in the muck, either way past Varshi's concern.