Warm Iron and Sharp Blood
by Moonraker One
PROLOGUE – British Empire, 1103 A.D.
"No, please, don't...I beg of you..."
Frenzied pleas from a struggling woman fell upon the uncaring ears of a monstrous beast. The only way to describe a man seeming in every way devoid of such pitiful emotions such as compassion, remorse, and love, is as a bloodthirsty killer ravenous in almost any possible negative connotation. Very simply, this ordinary knight from the Kingdom of Britain could only have devolved so dramatically and existentially within through the influence of years of depraved behavior, or from an external source. And, being that the man himself only had obtained the age of thirty-six years, his external source had been one that very few wise men ever go after. He had obtained wisdom relating to the field of ending human life in a just war, and decided thereupon that he would go in search of the one item that could make his journey to becoming the ultimate knight complete. None of that, however, mattered to the woman whose mostly naked form jerked viciously in fleeting, desperate hopes of relieving herself of the bonds which held her against the stony ground.
"Please, dear knight!" she begged as her wrists, parallel to each other over her head, were held violently to the ground. "I have money! Take all of my possessions! Just please do not take that which I cannot regain!" Her frightened pleading served only as a moment's irritation to the victor in the battle of momentum taking place on the stone floor of her estate. Her sole means of preventing his intrusion upon her holy ground, he defeated by placing his left and right feet, pointed, between her tightly-closed thighs and sliding them apart. "NO! PLEASE! PLEEAAAASSSEEEEEE!"
Her resounding screeches of agony echoed through the estate walls as he angrily and with much decided anger, took that which made her innocent. As scarce as his morals were—one could say they were to the point of nigh non-existence—he had one deciding factor and that was that he had to finish quickly or he would get noticed. That would mean more bodies, and although that would give him more souls, it would also mean that he would have to go through the rigors of being targeted again. As it stood, his current reputation for being a slayer of men and a godless spiller of blood served him awfully enough; he didn't need to be slowed down while in his lowest point of guard whilst raping a mortal woman, of any political standing that served her position. Thus, he affirmed himself to the only action he saw fit to perform and that was to cease in a matter of minutes and don his wardrobe and armor, and flee the building.
Knights serving their lady of the manor burst through the chamber door just in time to be a tad too late. "M'lady!" the eldest of the group resounded. "What in God's name?" Not a single one of them could comprehend the sight before them as they draped her in a noble cloth to cover her violated body, and signaled for the mendicant. How could an assailant enter the massive estate and rape her without meeting any resistance? It seemed impossible, as even during the night knights roamed the grounds patrolling every entrance and exit.
From the treetop several hundred meters from the estate, the figure stood, clutching the wicked sword in his hand. Hn, a voice spoke through him, devoid of hope and compassion. A seed of my essence will be left behind...a child of delightful wickedness. Even if my blade is destroyed and my existence wiped out, something of myself will remain always.
Just a tad over nine months later was born a child whose fate would remain intertwined with the wicked sword for the longest of times.
CHAPTER ONE – British Empire, 1591
It had been almost a hundred years since human beings hath set foot inside the cave known simply as "Death Cavern." From the simplest of means had an ordinary cave grown to be one of many sources of folklores in the glorious kingdom of England. Adventurers told stories galore of people having met their horrid end inside the cave, of blackened death itself taking root inside, of annihilation itself greeting all who set forth within, that even angels of God's domain dared not enter for fear of attack. Most of it was lies and simple codswallop, of course, but still, some evil lurked within.
Footsteps disturbed the eerie silence permeating the cavern like a thick layer of mist. Gentle rapping of feet indicated knights of honor deviating from their code in search of power that would enhance their own dramatically. "Locke!" whispered one. "Do you see it yet?" His question needn't have been stated, for the weapon stood, embedded in a stone surrounded on three sides by torches indicating its presence. Happiness demolished fear as they approached the blade. "Locke! We have done it!"
As he stepped forward to retrieve the blade from the stone, his hand no sooner touched the hilt as he found himself the victim of betrayal as his partner's longsword buried itself in his back. Locke grasped his partner's corpse under the armpits and pushed him behind him, as he took the blade himself and proudly drew it from the stone. "I've done it!" he shouted, holding it valiantly above his head. "With this sword I can have a defense against the wielder of the Soul Edge, the Azure Knight!" His purpose was very clear and he knew all he needed at this point was to begin searching for the dreaded Azure Knight, the person known as Nightmare, who once was Sigfried Schtauffen. He became so full of himself that he failed to notice the presence of a figure rising behind him, granting movement to a corpse. "What the..." Turning around, he saw something he never imagined. His dead ally had just come back to life with a dramatically different form. This time, he'd been replaced by a woman. Her hair was multi-layered and shaggy-looking. She had white eyes devoid of darkness. Her skin tone was slightly red. But the one thing he noticed, a bit too late, was that she took the blade belonging to his partner and instantly it restored to brand-new. The moment he came up with an effective reaction, he found himself impaled through the heart.