Penny

The Hyborian Chronicles: Of Sword and Sorcery

It would seem that Ibn-vakir was less of a fool than Anya had taken him for. A dozen men rushed into the small courtyard, leaping down from the high flat celings of nearby building and rushing from the maze of blind twisting alleys. The wore the tawny robes of local peasants, though in many cases the bulged unnaturally, betraying the presence of mail or leather armor beneath. The priest trick saved his life and Anya felt a slight pang of disappointment, she did not despise trickery, for the mind should be as sharp as any sword, but magic in any form made her lips curl.

"Perhaps priestling," she observed, "I should return to Ymirheim and leave you to your reckoning." The assassins milled for a moment before catching sight of her and surging forward.

"But I think, perhaps I won't," she concluded before throwing her head back and bellowing a blood curdling warcry. Without a moments hesitation she ripped her axe from her belt and swept it up through the jaw of the nearest attacker, sending the man twitching and spasming to the round as the life fled from his ruined body along with blood and brain matter. With a flick of her wrist she reversed the grip on the use worn grip of the weapon and hurled it overhanded into the chest of a scraggly bearded rogue with a rusted spear, the impact knocking the man from his feet and filling the air with the metallic rip of shattered mail. In the half second breathing space the throw brought her she pulled her sword from the leather sheath across her back. The bluish metal sang as it slid free of the leather, its point glinting in the moonlight. She didn't unsling the wood and leather shield with its raven device, for the courtyard was too cramped to allow for more than a sword and the will to use it. With a ululating cry she darted forward leaping the bodies which still twitched in the dusty street, planting a foot on a pile of stacked timber and spring boarding high into the air. Another of the attackers lifted his sword to fend of her strike, but the massive double handed blow with all her weight behind it, shattered the cheap iron of the scimitar like a hammer striking ice. Anya's blade struck him on the left shoulder, severing his arm at a downward angle starting at his collar bone in a spray of blood. She hit the ground in a crouch with one hand outstretched to spread the impact, the sword in her free hand slashing her across the hamstring of one of the thieves who had been too slow to react to the unexpected attack. The man dropped to the ground screaming and clutching at his crippled leg, crimson blood seeping between his dark fingers.

Screams echoed through the thieves quarter as Anya straightened, her eyes a light with the exstacy of battle.

"Come rogues!" she bellowed, "let us see if the men of Iridistan are good for anything other than cheating at dice!"

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The only good wizard was a dead wizard. Anya Sorensdaughter had lived with those words from her first memories. Years of travel had provided scant contradiction to the old adage. Priest and sorcerers would bable about their arts and the mighty feats they would work, but however mighty they might be Anya had yet to meet one whose belly would repel a sharp blade. Skavi the Black was a wizard, she had sought him out in far of Asgard, retracing her blood soaked steps through Aquillonia and Cummoria to the familiar snowfields of her home. There, in the frozen north, at the head of a vast glacier she had found Skavi's cave and faced the phantoms he conjured to protect it. For all their terrors they too had been bested by the cold steel of her sword, forged under the light of the winter moon and quenched in the Tears of Ymir where the glacial ice had smoked and sizzled around the red hot iron for a day and a night. Such was the craft of Soren Danicson and of his daughter whom men called Anya.

In these lands she was an aberration. Even here, where men with sharp swords and hard hearts would always find welcome, there were few Aesir, and in all the world, there was only one Anya Sorensdaughter. Among the Aesir, those blond haired and blue eyed reavers of the frozen north, it was not customary for women to go to war, nor to travel beyond the steps of Cummoria and south to the sweltering kingdoms below the desolate hills of that grim country. That Anya had done both spoke much of her unique character. She was short for her kind, though she towered over all but the tallest southerners, with hair of a blond so pale it seemed a snowy white in the sun and picked up the character of the light in all other settings. A mark of Ymir's interest most assuredly, though that was rarely a good or a happy accolade. Ymir was not like the soft gods of the south, to be wheeled with and placated by the endless mouthing of empty prayers. Her beauty too was that of the ice, hard planes and angular bones which no rogue pot could tame. Her body was slender but wound with whipcord tight muscles which gave her the constant and unnerving appearance of a wolf about to pounce. There had been men who had thought she might fetch a fine price on the slavers block. The had regretted their mistake. Briefly.

Kafir was alive on this muggy evening. Citizens bustled about on business or in revel, some animated by they new not what, simply a feeling that this was a time to be alive and doing. Armed men, mercenaries hired by the prince of this sprawling city of adobe houses and high walls of sun bleached stone, patrolled or, more frequently, staggered and caroused according to their wont. These were troubled times, and though the Kolaks and their bands of raiders mounted on wiry southern ponies were always a threat, there was little they could do against steel guarded stone. Perhaps the prince simply felt better with men under arms than in the pay of his enemies, which was a wise enough strategy when plague and disorders stalked the land. A few of them leveled speculative glances at Anya, but the long sword of pale blue steel, the mail of tightly woven links, and the short hafted axe at her belt convinced them to find more congenial targets for whatever entertainment they had planned.

With his dying words Skavi had sent her her, screamed as the ice that had fallen on him slowly crushed the life from his body. The answer to the question of whether the shade of Soren Danicson had entered Valhalla. No. That her father had died in battle she was certain, having held his spear pierced body in her arms, but his shade appeared to her in dreams when the moon was full and the wind was cold, and so she had sought out Skavi the Black and he had told her, through his cracked and bleeding, of the curse that the Vanir shaman had laid upon her father. That such a black rite should exist at all astonished her and she could not abide that the shade of her father should be held by such a trick. The shaman had been slain by a spear of mistletoe fashioned with the blackened bones of Soren Danicson, all that remained was for the blood of the Shaman and the blood of Soren Danicson to be smeared upon the Opal of Vulkur, that Ymir might know that he had been cheated of a soul by base trickery and Soren Danicson might take his place in the halls of Valhalla. For Anya's part, she was eager to be done with the company of shades.

The gem had been lost long ago, stolen by the mighty thief Paven, who had carried it from the crown of the slumbering High King Wulfric in full view of his court. It had passed through many hands since then, but Anya, guided by Skavi the Black's dying words, had come to this place and found the thief who called himself Ibn-vakir. The Iristanian claimed to know where the jewel lay and promised to reveal the information to her in exchange for a fortune in gold. Anya didn't have a fortune in gold, but she suspected that her sword pressed to his genitals would prove equally persuasive. She reached the dockside where they were to meet, nose wrinkling at the smell of human filth and the spicy scent of exotic timbers. This was the thieves quarter of Kafir and she could expect Ibn-vakir to know every bolt hole and back alley. She needed to be quick and clever. As she neared the appointed rendezvous she caught sight of another man, hooded and cloaked. Perhaps she was not the only taker for what the accursed thief was selling.

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The Hyborian Chronicles: Of Sword and Sorcery

Races Quick Reference: https://hyboria.xoth.net/races/human_races.htm

The Hyborian Chronicles: Of Sword and Sorcery

Anya Sorensdaughter

Name: Anya Sorensdaughter

Race: Aesir

Profession

Bio: Anya was born on the frozen glaciers of Asgard, the only child of the famous smith Soren Danicson. Anya was the surviving child of a pair of twins, her brother dying during childbirth. Her icy white hair, already present at birth marked her as particularly fated (for good or ill) by Ymir the Frost Giant. The shaman of the village counseled the heart broken Soren not to despair over his fallen son, and that the child's shade might yet enter Valhalla through the deeds of his sister Anya.

Although women were not typically called upon to bear arms, Anya's unique doom made her a special case. From the time she could work Soren trained his daughter in all the arts of war as well as in his smith craft. By the time she was ten should could run for a full day without rest and hold her own with sword, axe or spear as well as any man of eighteen summers. She wen't on her first raid against the Vanir at age sixteen and distinguished herself as a skilled and ruthless warrior. Over the succeeding years she became a champion and a war leader, leading her own raiding parties west into Vanirheim and south against the Cummorians. She developed a reputation for attacking unexpectedly, particularly in bad weather and in the snow, and savagely pressing the attack until the enemy was shattered.

When Soren Danicson was mortally wounded in a battle in the Cummorian marches, he told his daughter that the night before he had dreamed of Ymir the Frost Giant and that the time had come for her to venture out of Asgard and find the doom she had been promised. Anya left before her fathers body was cold, working her way south towards an uncertain goal, selling her sword and following the charnel call of the ravens.

Dogs of War: Old World Mercenaries

Emmaline drew a deep breath. She realized there was a very high likelihood she was about to die. Ordinarily that would have scared her, but the thought of being enslaved again was more repulsive and terrifying than mere death. Long moments passed with no sound of alarm broke through the roar of the sword. She waited as long as she dared before taking a final deep breath and pushing open the hatch. An elf sailor stood in front of her, soaked to the skin by the rain, he froze in shock for the half second it took for her staff to fly up between his legs. The blow struck home and the elf doubled over in pain. Emmaline drove the top of her staff down onto his head with a crunch and sprang up the short flight of stairs to the quarterdeck.

The sea heaved mountainusly and the spray flew so thick it nearly drowned her. The heat of adrenaline warmed her like a fire against the icy chill of this northern sea and it kept her moving in-spite of her fear. On the aft deck was the wheel, where stood the eleven captain and another elf wrestling with the wheel. They looked up at her in shock and the captain opened his mouth to shout something but she darted past him to her goal. Atop a swiveling platform at the rear most extension of the ship stood a large bolt thrower. She grabbed the weapon and hauled it around as best she could. The Captain seeing her intent let go of the wheel and grabbed for his sword, the ship luffed alarmingly as it lost way against the wind and the cruel elf hesitated for a half second. It was all that was needed. Emmaline heaved on the firing lever and the repeating bolt thrower thumped like a slaming door. A razor sharp bolt the thickness of Emmaline's thigh punched the captain through the chest and hammered him back into the wheel shattering it in a shower of splinters. The ship yawed sideways as it lost way completely turning broad side to the oncoming wave. Emmaline aimed and fired again the bolt smashing the rearward mast step to pulp. High above she could see Amal and Brenly in the fighting top, staring down at her in abject horror. Abandoning the bolt thrower she screamed a spell and summoned forth an arc of golden light, slicing the remainder of the mast away and severing all but a few of the many cables that ran to it. The roaring wind wipped at the lateen sail, now connected to noghting more than the fighting top, its own yard and a few cables. Ropes parted with a crack like thunder and Emmaline dived for the nearest, catching it and wrapping her arm in it for dear life. The face of the wave rushed on, fifty feat of roaring frothing seawater, and if any Elves had taken their eyes from that she could not see them. THe final cables parted and the fighting top and the lateen ripped skyward under the titanic forces of the wind. Emmaline was yanked upwards so hard she nearly dislocated her arm as they sailed free of the ship and up into the storm tossed sky. Her last vision of the Dark Elf raider was of the ship going broad side as the wave plowed over it, taking the crew and the remaining cargo to Mannan's judgement.

Emmaline could see nothing from the driving rain in her eyes as she hauled herself arm over arm up the cable. Amal and Brenly pulled her aboard but they were already losing momentum from the gust and sagging back towards the roiling sea. Emmaline shook the men off and placed her hands on the heavy wooden yard.

"Haul in the cables and find something to tie them to!" she screamed over the roaring wind as she began to work the spell. It was possibly the greatest magical working she had attempted in her young life. THe wood around her hands began to change hollowing out and forming diamond hard mage glass. It was a trick for creating durable reagent bottles and never meant for anything on this scale, but she held on and kept chanting. Slowly their decent began to slow as hundreds of pounds of timber dissapeared under the effect of the spell. Amal and brenly hauled on the ropes till the Lateen made a triangular slightly slanted canopy above them, the top now light enough to be held aloft by the wind a few dozen feet above the storm tossed ocean, rocking and surging like the down of a thistle. The spell spread like an oil stain across all the timbered surfaces until it seemed they were held aloft in a tub made of glass.

"Should I cut the cables!" Brenly called, wild eyed at what Emmaline had wrought.

"No..we.. need the.. sea ancors or we will flip," she groaned hoarsely, pulling her hands free and ending the incantation. The magical effort had been immense and it had nearly been too much for the young wizard. Her eyes flickered with traces and sparks of gold for a moment and then dimmed.

"For my next trick.. I need a voulnteer," she gasped and collapsed into a faint.

Dogs of War: Old World Mercenaries

"Well I never was very good at following instructions."

Emmaline nearly dropped her sword as Amal swept her up in his embrace. So relieved was she to see him that she momentarily forgot that they were on a ship full of murderous elves. The embrace continued until the older man beside Amal cleared his throat politely. Emmaline peered at him before the realization struck her.

"Sir Brenly?" she asked in astonishment. The older Knight performed a courtly bow. She couldn't fathom how he hadn't drowned when El Cragador went down, but she supposed if she and Amal had survived, perhaps others had as well.

"My Lady," he said with a grin that made him look a decade younger. She handed him the sword, the tip stained with drying blood, to the Knight certain that it would be more use in his hands than in hers. Brenly took it and glanced at the blood.

"You have already seen some of the enemy I take it?" he asked. Emmaline nodded, pointing back towards the door to the officers mess where a thin trail of blood dissipated into a cupboard. If she had time the might have used a spell to clean it up, but it seemed unlikely they would remain undiscovered long enough for it to matter. She thought she could hear a distant hammering on a hatch, but the storm was too furious to be sure.

"Do you have a plan?" Amal asked. Emmaline looked a little embarrassed though not as much as Sir Brenly who appeared to be trying to avoid looking at the rain soaked silk clinging to her body.

"Find the carpet and escape was about as far as I got," she admitted. In retrospect that wasn't much of a plan, even before there had been a third person involved, so far as she knew the carpet had been burned with the Destrier after the Dark Elves had looted her. Amal and Brenly exchanged glances. Emmaline folded her arms crossly.

"Well if either of you has an idea," she asked. Both men looked at each other in chagrin. What did they expect her just to fly them to saftey? Emmaline frowned.

"I have an idea," she said after a moment.

"A good idea?" Amal asked.

"Well lets not get ahead of ourselves," she cautioned before kneeling down on the deck and scratching a rough outline of the ship on the ancient timber.

"Most of the elves are going to be working the ship," she explained, quickly relating what she had seen when she had peaked out into the malestrom of the storm.

"If you two can get up into the little box just below the sail on the back mast..."

"The aftermost fighting top," Brenly added pedantically. Emmaline shot him a waspish look.

"Whatever, if you can get up there, I think I can get us out of here..."

Penny's Pencils

@VarockSvent
I don't typically work in charcoal just because I tend to make an ungodly mess.
Geesh those eye get higher and higher everytime I look at them

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