((This story, although using characters I've ascribed personalities to, is copyright Blizzard Entertainment 2005, please don't sue and all that jazz.
This story is rated PG... er... T(?) for minor swearing and violence and such.))
Swinging Chickens
A World of Warcraft fanfic
By Kristin Renee Taylor
Part Two -
"ANRI!"
Full night had fallen upon the Swinging Chicken Tavern and the half dozen smaller dwellings that had sprung up around it. The wood and thatch houses squatted, huge hulking mounds of blackness in the crescent sliver of moonlight, normally lit from hearths within, but dark now. The tavern itself was the largest building of all, and it loomed behind Liathano, master of its meager subjects.
The sleepy hamlet (if one could even call it that) was not yet enough of a town to deserve a name, backwater as it was, but if the recent (and still uneasy) peace between the factions continued, this sleepy backwater 'burb promised to become a mighty focus of trade one day.
But that's not important at this moment. Moving on...
Liathano stalked away from the Swinging Chicken Tavern, eyes straining to pierce the darkness. With one moon barely out and the other not even there, finding that no-good vagabond thief would prove next to improbable.
Improbable, not impossible. There's a difference.
She had gotten about ten or fifteen feet away from the tavern when the difference became noticeable. A soft scuffling noise sounded off to Lia's right, quickly falling silent.
Lia stilled immediately, but the sound didn't repeat.
Lia smiled, dangerously. If that's the way she wants to play it... Tilting her head slightly, Lia exhaled a soft breathe, closed her eyes, and Listened.
There's hardly anything arcane about Listening, and even if there was, Lia's natural disgust for most magic in general would have prevented her from ever learning it. No, Listening was just as its name implied, Listening. Liathano pushed all other sensual awareness into the background, focusing solely on what her ears could hear. And this is what she heard:
Nothing.
No insects droning in the lazy summer air. No soft "whumps" of wingbeats overhead, bats or nighthawks or owls seeking a meal. No vermin, rats or mice, even the occasional raccoon. No horses in the stables next to the tavern, moving about or shifting in their sleep. Not even the wind moved; the air hung flat and oppressive around her.
Silence.
Stillness.
Wrongness.
Liathano ducked and, in doing so, saved her life. The blade of the axe cleaved through the space her neck had been a half-instant before. She transformed her motion into a backwards kick. Her boot connected solidly with something big, thick, and not Anri. It stumbled back a few paces, off-balance.
Lia whirled in a half-crouch to face her attacker and drew Alennius from its scabbard. The sword, one of two her father had made before his death, came free with a ringing hiss, unnaturally loud in the unnatural silence. Archaic runes, hidden while she was in the tavern, flared into cold white light along the length of the blade.
In that stark light, Liathano beheld Galen, one of the foresters that labored in the surrounding woods. He and his wife and his two girls Addie and May lived in one of the hamlet's small huts. Or his family lived, at least. The tall brawny woodsman was most definitely not alive. Alennius' light reflected his eyes dully, the normally warm brown orbs were filmed with heavy cataracts. A dark red slash along his throat betrayed the manner of his death. His shirt was almost black with his own blood. In hands the size of shovels he gripped his heavy axe.
He moved, swinging the axe down at Lia's head. She rolled away. The axe buried itself in the ground, throwing up dirt and gravel. Lia kicked him in the face, heard the bones of nose snap, and watched as it had no effect whatsoever. Galen grabbed her ankle, spun, and flung her through the air.
She flew fifteen yards, in the air the whole way, and crashed back first into the wall of a house hard enough to bounce off it, thudding to the ground. Alennius sailed off, its light vanishing the instant it left her hand.
The night went scarlet and then plunged into darker blackness.
Lia twitched away from unconsciousness. Galen was charging her, axe held high overhead. She moved, or tried to. Her limbs jerked spastically, a sharp lance of pain stabbed her in the side, and she groaned in dismay. This was it.
A shadow flitted. A small figure hurtled out of the darkness, slamming feet first into the charging woodsman's shoulder just enough to throw him off his momentum. He staggered, tripped on his feet, and pitched to the ground, axe spinning away into the darkness.
Anri rebounded from her kick, somersaulting backwards to land in a crouch on the ground. Her clothing, nearly black, faded almost perfectly into the surrounding darkness. She had drawn a black mask over the lower half of her face, completing her motif.
Galen was rising. Liathano gasped out, trying to warn her. It wasn't necessary. As the big man charged her, Anri's hands blurred in a quick movement. Two knives sprouted from Galen's eyes, buried hilt first into his face. He made a noise, the first since he had attacked: a thick, liquid hissing and gurgling bubbled from the ruins of his throat, and Liathano realized he was trying to scream.
As he stumbled past Anri, blinded and clawing at the knives in his face, she flowed to one side. And then she went to work. Moving with cold, methodical precision, she attacked him, each blow with a sickening crunch as she pulverized joints, disabling him further. Her last blow swept his legs out from under him, and fell heavily to his back. His body, mostly useless now, twitched and jerked as he tried to rise.
Anri looked down at him for a moment. Then, she knelt, pulled her knives free with two quick tugs. They came free with a sickening squelch. Anri wiped both blades clean on the undead forester's shirt and returned them to their sheathes. Standing, she turned to where Liathano still lay. "Well?"
Lia climbed slowly to her feet, wincing as she drew in a breath. Looked like she had broken some ribs during her flying lesson. She looked about for Alennius and found it lying several feet away. The blade flickered back to life as she picked it up. Then she turned to Anri. "What did you do?"
Anri snorted, her voice heavy with scorn. "What ya should've done instead of gawkin' like some brat, fresh from home." She kicked Galen. "Undead don't feel pain, that's why ya don't use swords, idiot. Crush their bones, keep 'em from movin'. Then kill 'em. Well, kill 'em again at any rate." She glanced down at the twitching body at her feet, and kicked it again. "Twitchy bastards."
"Stop that," Lia said, quietly and angrily. "He's a man."
"He was a man," Anri said, and the sneer was audible. "Now he's jus' a walkin', stinkin' pile of flesh with not enough decency to stay in his grave."
Fury colored Liathano's tone. "I know that 'walking, stinking pile of flesh.' I lived with his family. I've helped them with chores-"
"And now yer gonna help put 'im outta 'is misery, what with you two bein' friends and all." In Alennius' light, Anri's eyes were cold and uncompassionate. "And yer gonna do it fast. We don't gotta whole lotta time."
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"What? Ya think this guy's the only one? The whole bloody town's dead, 'cept for those fools in the tavern! Only they ain't stayin' dead. They all upped and walked away, and they took the kids with 'em!" Anri's voice cracked with rage.
Liathano stared at her, eyes widening in understanding. She looked down at Galen, then around at the dark, silent houses.
Too silent. Dead, even.
"They took the children," Lia said softly. She glanced at Anri again. "All of them... including yours."
"Nobody steals from me," Anri said, eyes gleaming with hatred. "I do the stealing, not them." Spinning on her heel, she stalked away into the night.
Liathano watched her go until she faded from Alennius' light. Then she looked down, at the undead corpse of Galen, still twitching feebly.
Quietly, "I'll get them back. I promise." She gripped her sword's hilt in both hands and lifted it.
Moments later, Liathano jogged after Anri, Alennius bouncing from the scabbard on her hip. She held one hand curled protectively around her chest, wincing sharply with each breath.
She left one corpse behind her. Unmoving.