After many of the battles fought with flame legion around Ascalon since legionnaire Grimcrotch became centurion, it seemed most wanted to take a break and regroup. This Blood Legion commander was frightening, they had never dealt with such a ruthless and fearless foe since the three legions broke out and forced their surrender. Too many of their number had perished at his hand.
The weeks since the centurion had begun to train Rafka Firemane in weapons turned into months, then a year; he had been busy with other tasks, and knowing Rathgaar Firemane, her sire, had been training her this whole time was better, he felt, for both of them. The two had become a typical sire and cub, the animosity on Rafka’s part having disappeared.
Rafka also expanded her training to pistols, and was quickly becoming known as a crack shot, especially while unloading on targets mid-dive. She simply did not miss. And while the cub began to take on small jobs around the citadel that involved killing the ghosts and smaller pockets of flame legion that refused to give ground, she had begun to grow in size rather quickly as well.
A friend she had found in the fahrar, Clawspur, a thief, had begun to show her the ropes involving pistols. But his training was soon expanded by her adding her own touch to what she had already learned with diving/rolling attacks.
‘Don’t think I’ve ever seen her miss a target. I was nearly a fully trained thief when we began, and she has surpassed me already. I wouldn’t fight her,’ Clawspur told her sire. Rathgaar grew more proud of his not-so-little-anymore cub every day.
——
Grimcrotch crawled slowly along the ground below the small rise, his second Dinky behind him. ‘Ok, which ones are they?’ he whispered, as quietly as a charr with a deep raspy voice can, focusing his eyepiece on several flame legion shaman near the cave entrance. Dinky slid up next to him and whispered back, looking in the enemy direction, ‘Hell, all of them if you can.’
Grim stopped focusing his eyepiece and turned to his friend with an ‘Are you kidding me?’ look, then flipped it up and looked around. They were surrounded by 40-ish flame legion between 25-30 feet away on all sides, with only a small outlet behind them to get into, and out of, where they were. Thankfully the fires lit by the enemy kept them blind to much else beyond the light they gave off.
‘Shh.’ Grim held a claw to his mouth and turned to look behind them, with Dinky turning to look as well, ‘What…’ Grim held the claw to his mouth again with no noise, then motioned that someone was walking behind them, beyond the flame legion and fires, in the same area as where they came into the enemy camp. He cocked his ears and sharply gazed back into the darkness…
Turning back to the task at hand, Grim flipped his eyepiece back down and focused on one of the flame legion shaman at the edge of the group near the cave, nearly sixty yards away. The enemy turned and stepped away from the group; the centurion slid his bow flat to the ground slightly over the edge of the rise and loaded an arrow, then turned back to watch his target.
The shaman went to a stack of crates at the side of a tent nearby and reached in; the arrow silently shot away, going straight through the side of his head. He dropped off behind the crates, quiet. Dinky patted him on the back. Grim loaded another arrow, then focused on another target, again on the side of the group of shaman near the cave entrance.
——
The centurion’s target looked over and saw something on the ground near the tent where the first shaman dropped and went to investigate. He bent down for a pulse on the dead shaman, then turned. Just as he was about to give a shout alerting the flame legion of their dead comrade, a silent arrow entered his mouth and stuck in his head, dropping him on top of his dead friend.
Grim exhaled, then drew breath again and focused on another target near the cave. Dinky shook his head in disbelief that his friend could do this, and patted him on the back again. A third shaman from the group spoke up to his friends, wondering where one of them was, and started to step to the nearby tent with crates then stopped and turned still within their view…
As he attempted to speak an arrow flew through his temple, eyeballs bouncing out onto his face as he fell over. ‘We’re being attacked!! Rally up fla…’ Another shaman began, as an arrow went straight through his face, dropping him back with his men standing and turning to see their commander die.
The entire camp came to life, weapons drawn, confusion in the dark, shouts to everyone to find the sniper. Dinky whispered to his boss ‘Think we’ve been noticed.’ Grim pulled his bow back from the rise and whispered back, ‘Let’s get out of here.’ The two began to crawl back out the way they entered the camp. Near the point where they could almost stand and run, gunfire went off with bullets and arrows pelting the ground and trees around them.
The two blood legion soldiers stood and began to run when Grim was shot in the back on the right shoulder, making him drop his bow and fall to a knee. ‘Aaah! Dammit!’ he grunted. Dinky moved behind his commander and picked up the bow and lifted his centurion with bullets and arrows plinking off his shield. ‘Whether you can or not, boss, we have to run!’
Rafka Firemane, newest member of the [XII] Twelfth Blood Legion Battalion, Grim Warband
The two thieves each darted to a flank of the flame legion camp, unloading dual pistols, one bullet to the head of every enemy soldier standing taking out half of their number in one pass. Several of the flame legion gunners took out captured charrzookas to light up the edge of the camp. After reloading, Rafka had two of them aim directly at her, and as she dove away she put shots straight into the barrels of both cannons, making them explode both weapons and torsos of the soldiers carrying them.
Clawspur on the other side did nearly as well. But while reloading he dropped a clip, forcing him to dive to avoid several shots while pulling daggers from his belt and targeting the soldier’s heads. Down to the last twelve flame legion soldiers who had backed toward the cave, not including the remaining shaman, Clawspur leaped at them, jamming one dagger into the base of one neck then turned to do the same to another, pulling more blades from his belt and repeating it on several more, Rafka exploding heads with her crack shooting, down to only the shaman remaining.
‘STOP!!’ a voice shouted from the trees they came from, Dinky walking out toward them. The two held weapons on the three remaining flame legion commanders. ‘The centurion didn’t want you as a cub to see how he gained his reputation, Rafka. He didn’t want you to see him kill anyone this way, but you’re a big cub- er, soldier, now. Flame legion will only learn if you are more ruthless than they are. Watch and learn.’
‘Get on your knees. ALL THREE OF YOU,’ he ordered the remaining shaman. They complied. Dinky took off his shield and dropped it to the ground, pulled his sword, then with a roar split each shaman in half from skull to crotch, blood squirting and innards oozing everywhere. Rafka and Clawspur covered in blood, both got an unbelieving look, wide eyed, looking at what was living beings seconds ago, then at Dinky himself covered in blood. ‘Welcome to the Bloody Twelfth, you two. Now get over there and help your centurion walk back to the Citadel.’
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