Reply To: KoW International Campaign Day OTTer HQ 8th Feb

[avernosKeymaster 33947xp 2]

Sparks flew off the two blades as they spun off each other, their handlers gritting their teeth at the effort. Thordjin and Fregmoln stared at each other with baleful gazes. They were tired, bbut each seemed to know the others’ actions before they took it. They moved as if locked into a choreographed dance. Each stroke was met with a perfect riposte. Each heavy swing shearing cleanly through the air as its intended target stepped nimbly to the side.
“How many times have we done this?” Fregmoln growled. His arms burned and his throat was raw from thirst and battle cries.
“I’ve lost count.” Thordjin’s composed stance belied his own exhaustion.
“Then why do we continue?” There was another lunge, another squeal of metal as the blow was batted aside and the follow up was dodged just as readily.
“Because what else is there? Neither of us will turn from this fight. Even if we did, our lord would simply start the day over again and show us his displeasure accordingly. All there is left for us is to fight.”
“There must be a way to finish this, so that we do not have to compete in this eternal struggle over and over again!”
They stood, panting, their eyes locked on each other. Then, slowly, they looked up to see the hovering figure above them. Korgaan soared in the sky overhead, his hungry eyes staring down at the carnage beneath him. The once wispy figure had solidified into a muscle bound warrior over the course of the countless days that the two armies had repeatedly fought the same battle, drunk on the fear and anger and pain that filled the air with each repeated massacre. Every day always ended the same, with both sides dead to the last warrior and blood soaking the snow beneath their corpses.
Thordjin and Fregmoln were the only ones that seemed conscious of the repeating days. All the other soldiers were oblivious to the deja vu that washed over the two commanders each morning. In one of the thousands of battles that they had fought, the two generals had discovered that the other was aware of the repeating cycles, the ongoing battle that reset with each morning, and the traitorous sacrifice that their deity had claimed from them at the end of each day as the victor stood on the field alone and Korgaan slid his own blade through their gut before turning the hourglass to again reset the day.
They had tried not fighting. They had tried running away. Each time Korgaan found them and made them suffer such agony that the next day they dared not resist the air god again. They were captives in an endless loop of violence, caught in an endless cycle of death and rebirth.
Fregmoln lunged at Thordjin, but it was a clumsy strike and he blocked it easily. However, Fregmoln pressed in and locked their blades together so that he could lean in and whisper. Thordjin stared in surprise as his foe placed himself in such a compromising position. With a slight flick of his wrist, Thordjin could disembowel his opponent quite easily. But he paused as he listened to what Fregmoln had to say.
“Then we must work together!” He hissed “The hourglass is the source of our torment, is it not?”
Thordjin gave an almost imperceptible nod.
“Then whoever wins today’s battle must try and steal it from him. Let the contest end, let us die!” Fregmoln’s voice was pleading with Thordjin. “Are we agreed?”
Thordjin grunted in response and this time his nod was more defined. The two combatants broke apart and the contest began anew.
At the end of that day Fregmoln stood over the corpse of Thordjin. His chest was heaving at the exertion. It had been a good fight, but now the desperate moment had arrived. The northman looked up and saw Korgaan descending, his blade in one hand and the hourglass in another. He approached the victor and held out a hand to lay it on the mortal’s shoulder, but before the god’s blade could cut through the man’s stomach he lifted his sword and struck out desperately at the hourglass with the battered sword in his tired hands.
Lulled into security by the past thousands of battles that had passed, Korgaan had not been expecting the strike and he watched in dismay as the blow connected with his wrist and cleaved it from his arm. He shrieked in rage, not for the lost limb which he would regrow easily as was his ability as a god, but because the blow sent the hourglass spinning away from him end over end and as it landed he watched the ice crystals begin tumbling through the glass vial.
Fregmoln closed his eyes and waited for his god to strike him down. But he felt nothing but a comfortable warmth that spread over his body. When he opened his eyes he found himself sitting in his cot with heavy fur blankets spread across him and a cold sunrise bringing a blue light to the inside of his tent.
He sat up and felt a cold, hard object dig into his side. He threw aside the furs to discover the frosted hourglass he had struck from Korgaan’s grasp nestled there. He picked the artefact up and examined it before walking outside into the still light of the new dawn.
“My Lord!” A voice called to him. Fregmoln looked up to see one of his subordinates approaching him. “The enemy is already upon us!” The man pointed and Fregmoln followed to see a lone figure standing on a ridge about a hundred yards away. He instantly knew that it was Thordjin that stood before him and he held up the hourglass for him to see. The faraway figure nodded and pointed down the slope and instantly bands of skirmishers appeared along the horizon and began charging down toward the camp.
Fregmoln sighed and began bellowing orders. He cradled his prize as he walked through the camp and ushered his soldiers into hastily arranged battle lines. It seemed as though there was still one more day of battle to fight in order to end the cycle. Hopefully Korgaan would not come for the hourglass, but that was doubtful. It might be better to simply smash the thing now, but Fregmoln was willing to wait and see what might happen in the day’s events. He doubted that Korgaan had reserved a pleasant fate for any of them if the hourglass was shattered.