Thra’raxes
A human towering over six and a half feet tall moves through a thick wood followed by a group of four more humans, though the group is not as physically massive. One of the thinner of the group speaks up as they move, ”The scouts said that they set up camp about one hundred feet from the tree line in this direction.”
As the team moves forward they begin to slow their pace and seem to focus more on sneaking. Soon the trees just stop and before them is a plains. The group stops and each takes a place behind different trees and look out onto the plain. The rolling plain spans the view like an ocean on the horizon broken only by a camp about one hundred feet from where the woods stops.
The large human breaks the silence and whispers deeply, ”Same thing as before. Klethinal lives!”
”Klethenal lives!" the group repeats, each drawing their bows.
”Be careful Thra,” the thinner man says, his voice slightly uneasy.
Thra looks confidently a the group and smiles, ”They don’t call me ‘undefeated’ for nothing.” With that Thra turns, straightens himself, and begins walking confidently towards the camp. As he crosses the tree line some yells can be heard in the camp and movement quickly ensues. Seemingly to aid the warning Thra gives a loud deep bellow and stops his advance.
Fifteen men emerge out of the camp garbed in matching light armor and surcoats. The insignia on their surcoats identify them as guard of the nearby city. They organize and advance toward Thra. As they march they draw their swords and ready their shields. The guards men halt sixty feet from Thra and a guard from the center of the block steps forward, ”On behalf of Lord Grenis Hallen you savages are charged with banditry and occupying the Lord’s land! Surrender yourselves and beg forgiveness to the Lord and your lives may be spared!”
Thra yells back trying to surpass the guard’s volume, ”I am Thra’raxes! At this some of the guards shift nervously. ” They call me the ‘Undefeated’! On behalf of Klethinal and her people I will end your Lord’s claim!” Thra who, by the way, is wearing naught but a loincloth, stretch flexes his muscles warming his body for what is coming.
The guard spokesman chuckles at this and advances toward Thra’raxes flanked by two guards on either side. ” Stop this foolishness. The so-called Thra’raxes the Undefeated is just a ruse to scare us. You are nothing but a savage and you don’t have any weapon.”
Thra smiles widely at the guards words and quips, ”I don’t need a weapon when I can use yours.”
Now twenty feet from Thra, the small contingent of guardsmen stops as their leader continues his advance until he is just out of reach of Thra. ”Alright sav-“
His words are cut short as an arrow flies just next to Thra and lodges itself in the leader’s eye socket. Not wasting any time Thra charges forward, grabs the sword from the guard’s limping hand and continues the charge toward the small contingent of which four remain. Thra uses the sword in a broad sweep to spill the innards of the two guards to his left.
The rest of the guardsmen shout in alarm (“ambush!” and whatnot), they rush forward to aid their fellows and to organize as they had trained. As they rush forward some sprout arrows from helmets and chests and lose the ability to live.
Coming to their senses, the two guards still alive next to Thra have just enough time to raise their shields in defense of a similar blow. Thra grabs one of the raised shields with his off hand and moves it away as he thrusts his new sword through the guard’s abdomen, shish-ka-bobing the poor man. With the man going limp, Thra begins swinging the body toward his guard compatriot in time to use the body to block the sword slash. Thra then uses the same tactic to run the other guard through on the same sword while taking his sword in return.
The rain of arrows from the men in the woods have killed all but one of the other guards who were charging in toward Thra and the archers. As the last man looks round at his loneliness his morale breaks and he begins to run, his hand grasping at his side where a horn lies. The arrows cease and Thra, giving a quick sign of thanks, bloodthirstily sprints toward the remaining man sword in hand and beaming smile on his face.
What happens next i the most unfortunate series of slow motion events. The remaining guard grabs the horn from his waist strap and brings it to his mouth and blows. The horn sounds. However, as this happens, the man loses focus on his footing and trips. By the time that the guard had gotten his horn form his waist and blew Thra had caught up to him. Thra saw a glorious jump attack and he took it, his sword raised above his head with both hands, sword tip ready to plant itself into the base of the spine. But the guard tripped, the sword found the spine of the guard albeit a little lower. The end goal of Thra was not compromised. However, the tripping of the guard caused the hilt of guard’s sword to catch ground. As such the point of the sword, though in sheathe, was squarely at Thra’s abdomen. Now if anything is true about the world it is that most guardsmen have decent at best equipment. So, when everything that Thra is, which is a lot, falls on a decent at best sword in it’s sheathe, you can bet that the sheathe will not hold up and the sword will cut through. And it did. There Thra lay, on top of the guard he just killed, quite nicely I might add, with a sword sticking through him.
As the life escaped him Thra’raxes’ last thoughts were, Does this mean I have been defeated? I did kill him first…
