TotW 232 - The Terrible Oath!

[m_1512]

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The Terrible Oath



5 Keywords:
Oath
Unending
Hatred
Arms
Wrath

Rules

• 5 keywords that have to be used in the story. IN ANY WAY, BUT WORDS MUST BE SPELLED EXACTLY AS ABOVE (please place these words in bold so they can easily be seen by the moderators).
• Word limitation of minimum 200 but maximum 500 words INCLUDING all titles, footnotes or any other part deemed part of the submission, in a spoiler.
• Minimum 3 submissions to start the competition.
• If you are a contestant you are honour bound to not read other contestants' writings until you have submitted yours.
• Please note that all rules including word count and key words will be strictly enforced. Rule breakers will be disqualified from the vote.
• When using the keywords you may change nouns into plurals and the tenses of verbs only.
• Contestants are not allowed to do direct advertisement of their stories or asking for votes.
  Please vote for my story in ToTW.
  Please vote for your favourite story. (allowed)

Awards

Each winning story will receive 1 point, if you compete in the other Writers' Study competitions this point will be combined with the ones you have won already won.

6 points - bronze medal


12 points - silver medal


24 points - golden medal

[Shankbot de Bodemloze]

397 words.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

"ARGGGH!" I screamed down the hill. I liked screaming down hills. My big battle-axe, called Skull Basher if you must ask, was being waved in circles above my head by myself as I ran down the hill towards this defenceless village. Pap always said no two words sound better together then 'defenceless' and 'village'. A marriage made in heaven for pillagers like us he would say as we sailed across the seas to other defenceless villages. Uncle Orik, who was a blood-thirsty fella' even by our standard, argued differently. He felt that 'defenceless' and 'villagers' were the two best words when put together. A marriage made in heaven for pillagers like us he would say as we sailed across the seas to other defenceless villagers. I don't really mind; villager, villagers it makes no difference to me. I just like screaming. Down hills. With Skull Basher being waved about by my arms.

I heard cousin Borik (Orik's son) scream out "Feel my wrath" as he ran down the hill next to me. He was waving his big hammer, Hatred, above his head as well. Now me and Borik usually see eye-to-eye, for example we both like screaming down hills. However in terms of battle cries we disagree greatly. I prefer the traditional 'ARGGH!' - it's short, sweet, inspires terror and to the point (and Pap is the best Arggher we all know). Borik, on the other hand, has an unending fascination with words and likes to battle-cry with what he calls 'comprehensible sentences'. Apparently, they inspire more terror because the defenceless village (or villagers) can understand what you are saying instead of accidentally mistaking you for an animal. I don't understand how this could happen, my ARGGGHs are a lot more terrifying than any animal I know, and I have never had any problem with it since I started pillaging.

I'll admit it can get a bit boring, Borik does always seem to mix up his battle-cries, so recently I've start throwing in the odd oath or too just so the defenceless villagers aren't always hearing the same thing. Although Pap has told me to stop using oaths in my battle-cries, he says such foul words are only used by civilised people because they can't express their anger with ARGGGHs as it would appear to be 'un-civilised'.

I really need to think about what battle-cry to use tomorrow.

[Cohors_Evocata]

500 words exactly. Good luck, everybody.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I don’t know for how long I’ve lain here, one side of my body gently caressed by a thousand blades of grass, the other by unnumbered falling raindrops. I’ve pondered everything and nothing. I’ve thought of my choices, my journey. I’ve thought of the fate that is to befall me. And on this cloudy, rain-filled night I find myself wishing for just one more day up above.

But the skies and their lords are unyielding. My most heartfelt pleas haven’t sufficed to make them change their judgement. I’ve chosen to stray from my given path and, therefore, I'm to be punished. They can’t allow me to escape the consequences of my actions. Doing so would go against the essence of creation itself. As such, their wrath is unending and unforgiving. It has to be.

‘Delivery’ is my origin. Earthliness and divinity created me; Therefore, I was to be a messenger. The winds carried me both above and below as I flew, floated and fell between the realms. But happiness was not my part. I longed for one long fall which would ground me in one single realm, for merely hovering between could no longer give me peace of mind. Confident in my wish, I took an oath through which I forsook divinity and became mortally earthbound.

At first I delighted. Divinity enjoys and strives for creation and experience. I was no different: I marvelled at the miracles it had created and sought to partake in them as well. Although I saw a world of wonders, I also experienced the negative things this world had to offer: hatred, pain, fear. As time passed, I grew envious of my former self. Weary of my life below, I desired to be unbound once more, to once more travel between the worlds and be unburdened by the woes of this earthly realm. That desire, however, proved to be unattainable.

Before I took my oath and before I began desiring to take it, I had thought of those who did so as foolish. My kindred spirits and I called them ‘fallen’ and we swore to one another that we would never make the mistake they had made. We noticed they would not return after taking their oath, but we were much too occupied with ourselves to really care about it. We were ignorant, but blissfully so.

Those who have taken up arms against their roles cannot go back. Not until they have breathed their last and their mortal coils have returned to dust may they return to whence they came. And thus I find myself lying here, pulled down by the weight of an unfamiliar body and bound by the shackles of this earthly realm. And once more I notice that the object of my desires has changed: now I crave the last beat of the heart and the final blackening of the vision. All so that I may return and be free once more. All so that I may undo this terrible, terrible oath.

[Gandalfus]

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

It was an oath made on the battlefield; in blood and death. Corpses littered the black, scorched earth, the innumerable dead blankly facing up towards the grey sky. The sun had been hidden from view, obscured by a legion of clouds that marched across the sky. A bitterly cold wind howled in the distance, the only sound to pierce the thick, choking silence. The rank smell of rotting flesh polluted the air, and not a creature did dwell here, nor did any dare to move across this grotesque landscape. This was the price to pay for a promise born from the fires of hatred and vengeance. Death, and destruction.

None know what sparked this bloody feud. Tales tell of violent marauders, men under arms ravaging and pillaging the countryside, burning everything in their wake and leaving none to lament the fallen. Others tell stories of tarnished honour and spurned affection, whilst a few point the finger at greed and envy, spinning their web of lies and deceit at the expense of many. The real reason for this bloodbath is unknown, but thousands flock to kill their foe on the ravaged fields of strife, to take what their enemy cherish for their own.

Now, all that remains is this. Corpses on a field, a banquet of death being picked clean by carrion. Unending war has finally ceased, and a cold, eerie silence rules over the empty, barren landscape. The wrath of these mortal enemies has destroyed almost everything in its path, and now the oath born of violence, greed and vengeance is fulfilled.

262 words.

[Asdrubaal]

ehhh, I did this, 321 words

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

We arrived there during the morning; most of us had never seen, let alone used a weapon before but the lord’s orders were clear, every able men had to be armed and sent to fight in the war against an enemy we didn’t even knew how it looked, so there we stood, in front of the enemy and disoriented as we looked around and saw more people than we had even seen before our captain started yelling at us, ordering a charge, we looked at him, confusion in our faces as the rest of the line advanced running against the enemy. He yelled at us again and stabbed one of our men which was trying to escape so we started running, fearing him more than the enemy.

We charged across the battlefield, our lines clashing against those of the enemy like waves against the shore, I found myself fighting against a towering warrior, at least two heads taller than me, his body and arms covered in oaths dyed blue and written in his people’s runes, I could see the hatred in his eyes as he stroked with his weapon, the wrath giving even more strength to the blow. I managed to dodge it and tried to stab him with my spear. Rather than dodging he blocked it with his arm and with fury in his eyes he pushed me away and launched another swing. I saw his brutal weapon coming at me but the impression stunned me and before I knew I was in the floor, bleeding, I pulled my knife out of my belt and tried to hit him but he kicked my arm and laughed, during those last moments I couldn’t help but asking myself what had brought our peoples to such hate, what were the origins of our unending war, but the stream of thoughts stopped when I felt a cold pressure against my neck.

[Maximinus Thrax]

Reserved.

[Ngugi]

My first entry ever, hope I got it right.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I love him, as I look at him, to the brink that my heart is breaking.
"Are you ready?" I ask him in challenge in front of the witnesses around us, staring into his brown eyes, sees the shivering there, the hatred I ignited, but still the doubt, the reluctance.
"You were never a son of mine." I say.


If Kim can hear how my voice can hardly bear to finish that line, he show no sign of it. Instead a youthful wrath, bright in all its betrayed pain, flash over his hard chiselled face, framed by black long hair.
Kim's eyebrow twitch, for all I've thought him to reveal nothing, his eyebrow alert me, curse him. He will fight! The young man draw his sword as quick as a viper, but I react, edged arms in the open air.
Quick across the sand of the courtyard, he attack with the sudden supple force of a raging panther, the weight changing between his feet as he step, so I can't tell from what side he intend to strike. Clever boy.
The duel witnesses gasps and call for honour or our unending shame. Then he is at me.


Kim strike high, I parry, his force push me back. A cut for my legs, I jump backward, the apprentice is faster than he ever been before. I thrust, with a lightning swoop he brushes my edge away. I breathe heavier. At each stroke he let out a fell roar, I counter with fierce concentration, his is the strength but his blade is not allowed trough.
Kim suddenly get in low. The trick I thought him. He thrust for my thigh, I can drop back, but I know between seconds that Kim know that with this strike he has left himself vulnerable and either I should fall, or he. Both knows. Blind instinct.


I scream right out into eternity, as the duel witnesses rush forth to lift away the still body from the dust. The elder lay his hand on my shoulder and look into my unseeing eyes.
“You fought honestly. That secured him his honour” the elder say.
“When you killed Kim's father six years ago and then all his oath-bound kinsmen, duty demanded Kim to swear his oath of vengeance. I thought the child dead then. By your offer to school him until adulthood instead of killing him then, too, you gave him a chance. That was honourable. Though that is what they say about you.”
The tears stream across my face. I remember a boy of twelve. My son is dead.

433 words

[m_1512]

Great entries so far! Come on ye reserved lot, put in yer best shots.

[Hitai de Bodemloze]

Hat meet ring.

276

This couldn't be happening. He felt sick to his stomach. How had it all come to this? Arrayed about him in the dark chamber where a hundred silent figures; their expectant gazes burning into the back of his skull as they waited – waited for him to take this terrible oath. It had all started some months previous. Coerced and tricked by ones he used to call friends, he had found himself swallowed up by this foul group of people with their abhorrent traditions and customs. Was this what joining a cult felt like? A robed figure before him coughed and looked at him pertinently. He glanced at the robed man – orchestrator of this whole sick and twisted ritual. Hatred coursed through him. He hated the robed man, hated the audience who had appeared to watch his induction into their ranks, but, most of all, he hated himself for falling into their trap. He had been promised riches beyond belief. He had been promised love, security, everything he could have ever dreamed, but now he knew his own folly. His arms stiff at his sides, he turned away from the robed man and accepted defeat. Maybe he would have his wrath one day, but today was not that day. Better just to submit. “I repeat,” the robed man spoke, “do you take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife?” He turned to the odious woman next to him and took his unending oath: “I do.” The church exploded in cheers as his new in-laws showed their support. However, standing at the altar, all he could do was kick himself for having gotten so drunk in Vegas...

[Ussaid the Hashshashin]

Here is my spooky addition, 476 words!

Spoiler for The Face of Murder: 

16^th March
The unending blood-thirst of these men is petrifying. I have lived at this place for too, too long have I heard these mean-spirited oaths and curses, witnessing scenes of forbidding warriors unleashing their wrath on unwary victims, every single day. Their arms are bloody and heavy, being the last sight of many poor souls. The hatred of this vile place is MADDENING! Yet perhaps the worst of all this is that this insanity is glorified! The halls are dotted with haunting pictures of celebrated murderers and destroyers, songs in their remembrance still sung centuries past. And in the middle of all this, I silently watch these horrors. I watch these men slaughter others, I watch them live and die. What was before this madness is long beyond my recollection; there is only this bloodshed and its participants, with my eyes following their movements. An old man below my apartment shares my feelings, and I believe he is my last saving grace from madness, but his health is declining and he can barely talk now.

20^th November
Somehow, I am beginning to enjoy this place! The splattering of blood has now become music to my ears, and I cherish even the thought of its sweet sound! The songs sung in the halls are as beautiful as the images on these walls, although I think the pictures are changing their appearance.

30^th December
The euphoria that I am experiencing right now is beyond mere words! My thoughts are dizzy and my limbs light, yet it feels like paradise! The day before yesterday, there was no bloodshed. It made me uncomfortable, yet I wasn’t worried; the next day will come with the next death. However, yesterday, too, there was no death, there was no blood, and there was none of that sweet, calming sound of gashing liquid. I grew very impatient, yet still I knew the next morning will solve everything. Today there was no killing again. It drove my senses to madness, as I curved into a ball on the floor and screamed in agony. Then, the sight of the old man downstairs crossed my mind. I at once took a dagger and went down to slit open his throat, and then bathed under the spray of the rushing blood. I tasted it on my lips, I felt the warmth on my hands. When I turned, I saw the images on the walls have changed completely; now they resemble a calming scene of demons consuming various meats around a round table, with hellfire burning around them. Then the door of the hall opened, and the warriors, whose faces have changed to look like corpses, invited me inside and we sang a beautiful song detailing my enlightenment. I looked inside my bowl of water and saw my reflection; a blackened, rotten face. The sweet face of murder!