The Fall of the Locust

<<Hello! A little while ago I wrote a short biography for my GW assassin Mitsuki in this thread: http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10083617 on the first page. Since then, I've been writing this short story based on the events shortly before and throughout the battle involving the oni cult, mainly for myself but also for anyone who just loves GW based literature. Personally, I think this is best viewed copy pasted into a word processor with a slightly narrower page.>>

#1:

Hiyono Mitsuki smiled behind her mask, dark humour glittering in her narrowed eyes as the White Locust sentries left her chamber. She glanced upward, and beckoned almost without moving for her guest to come out from hiding.

The oni messenger Slezu paused for some time before it complied, its ropey body uncurling from the rafters and stretching impossibly down. It did not release the thin beams before the pointed ends of its legs were touching the polished wooden floor.

“That was close..”

The oni spoke in a velvet tone, articulating each word with perfect, fluid grace. It was a deep, disarming, unmistakeably male voice that Mitsuki found difficult to match with the entity to which it belonged.

“We were not expecting you.. You could have been killed..” Mitsuki replied with flawless neutrality. “For infiltrating this sanctum without our consent, you still could be.” She added, her hidden smile growing.

The White Locust assassin prodigy knew that the creature could take care of itself, and the oni seemed to know that she was playing. It took a shallow bow.

“I am at your mercy.” It replied, stifling an impish chuckle.

Over the past several days, Mitsuki and the oni agent had developed a considerable rapport. They were kindred spirits, mixing jollity with a deadly nature. There may even have been an attraction there-- when she wasn’t looking at him, of course.

“Did you just come to play?” The pale girl asked the towering demon, tipping her head and folding her arms under the chest of her unadorned training gear.

She almost grimaced as Slezu smiled broadly.

“Would that I had the time!” It said in faux exasperation “No, I am here to tell you that the Jade brothers are to bring Marak and my kin to the sword tomorrow morn.”

“The Locust is with Marak.” Mitsuki said quite formally, the glitter draining from her eyes.

“I know that better than the conjurer himself.” Slezu said pointedly, his own manner also becoming abruptly serious.

“What is your meaning, Slezu?”

Mitsuki’s expression flattened as she pushed a tremor of impatient irritation out of her glass voice.

“You are to commit your blades at the vanguard of Marak’s enclave.. The mad fool has elected to commit his zealots only once he sees that you are engaged..”

Slezu hesitated, feeling Mitsuki’s temper rise suddenly. It impressed him that she allowed no trace of her considerable outrage to be expressed by her body. He let his wet, dark tongue fall out into the air, coiling it back with the taste of her anger clinging to it; he savoured it for as long as he dared before delivering the last of his information.

“He will use my bound kin and I against you should you fail to appear- even should it cost him his life- and we cannot allow you to prepare at any place near to the enclave.. Naturally, my kin and I will arrive to support you as quickly as we can.”

Mitsuki’s folded arms came down to her sides. Her head was still, and she stared unflinchingly into the oni’s visage for over half a minute. Slezu did not react visibly; nor did he physically respond to the chilling tone of Mitsuki’s voice when she eventually spoke her reply.

“Marak did not buy the obedience of the White Locust, he bought our *support*; we will not be the first to meet the brute might of the Jade Brotherhood.”

“What am I to tell Marak?”

“Tell him that the Locust will join him *after* the Jade Brotherhood has commenced their attack; tell him that the Locust will reap those fools from their own shadows, and that if Hiyono Mitsuki‘s pledge cannot compel him to treat us as the allies for which he paid, then his payment will be returned and he will fight the Jade Brotherhood alone.”

There was a long, uncomfortable silence between the pair. The messenger’s head twisting slowly, until the oni was glaring side-long. Mitsuki allowed her expression to sour, and fondled the straps that fixed her heavily enchanted steel daggers to her waist.

“Marak won’t be pleased.” Slezu said, finally breaking the silence.

The oni’s statement was made in a resigned, bored tone that for some reason put Mitsuki at ease. She lifted her left hand and curled her fingers delicately through her ash white hair, lifting it where it had been limp against her cheeks, content to behave casually now that she felt their business concluding.

“Perhaps he will take it well?” She suggested teasingly, knowing that he would not.

The Locust pulled the mask from her face to reveal her restored smile as Slezu made a negative noise using his throat. The oni looked around him at the decorated walls, the candles, the black pillars, then back down to Mitsuki.

“Many of my kin have severed their ties with Marak, returning to limited and infrequent forays into this realm just to be rid of the frail cretin and his incessant mewling; the pact we made with him has been only arguably worth the trouble.”

Mitsuki arched a brow.

“I know that Marak’s less conventional forces have been shrinking, the Locust is not blind, but thank you for even supposing to warn me; I know that your own binding may have unravelled, only for that.”

Slezu’s large black eyes lingered, then he reached and pulled himself upward, bidding Mitsuki farewell as he disappeared into darkness. As he made haste to deliver the word of the Locust to Marak, so too did Hiyono Mitsuki slip from her chambers to consult with the clans’ true masters.

(tbc)

#2

It was a bitter morning.

The wind was up, and the creaking of flimsy wooden buildings and bridges was at a constant crescendo throughout the vast slums of Kaineng city. The gales were bitterly cold, and frequent gusts threatened to toss the unwary from any exposed path; a particularly grim prospect when one‘s business was on the Xaquang Skyway. The Stalking White Locusts crept rapidly through its labyrinthine sub-passages, bending themselves against the elements as they moved invisibly toward Marak’s hidden enclave.

Hiyono Mitsuki lead a full score of her clansmen. She flashed on all fours across the under-belly of a thin passage, staring down hundreds of feet at the barren, natural ground below as her limbs darted out precisely. Although the dozen assassins often interrupted each others paths, it was a testament to their discipline and skill that Mitsuki herself hardly noticed them on her heels.

The group reached the end of the narrowing tunnel, and Mitsuki motioned for the group to stop. There was not a sound as the professional killers complied in unison, lowering their bodies so that the shadows seeped over them. Where the Locust Prodigy knelt, the rafters that coursed like ribs all along the underside of the bridge melded into a single rectangle board.

Rather than lift the board, Mitsuki pushed it to avoid triggering the alchemical explosive trap. She paused for a cursory examination of the deep shadows within the hole she’d uncovered, before diving in ahead of her fellows.

<<>><<>>

The enclave was a structure surrounded by empty walls and covered by the floor of the Xaquang Skyway. It looked as though it had only two floors, but in actuality, the building was a pagoda. Beneath the floor of the unlit space in which the visible portion of the building was cradled, fifty or more other floors-- infested with all sorts of deadly creatures-- lead all the way down to the abandoned foundations of this part of the city.

Marak had been stamping tempestuously back and forth across the top floor of his headquarters ever since the inveterately unruly assassins had arrived- some ten long minutes ago- making it very difficult for the priests of his cult to complete their prayers. Arcing red lightning railed against him as he trod too close to the outmost band of a summoning circle, and he cursed loudly as he hobbled back, lifting his smoking right boot off the floor.

Power surged to his fingers in temper, and he whirled forward to find the arcane energy was already coursing gently again, filling the perfectly round mark with runic patterns. Marak forgot his pain, and smiled; but only for a moment.

“Locusts!” He hissed, and spat messily.

One of Marak’s small demonic host accidentally glanced over. Miraculously, the twisted conjurer did not jump at the opportunity to share the same tirade he had delivered the night before with it; electing instead to abbreviate it…

“Watch them!” Marak snapped. “This show of force is nothing more than a ploy intended to placate my wrath until you, our most venerable allies, have engaged yourselves elsewhere, and then they will leave us alone before a tidal wave of those brutal Jade Brotherhood savages!”

Slezu, the oni messenger, had wisely distracted himself before the shouting began. A pair of mad vagrants- part of a band which had taken refuge with Marak in exchange for their service as front line fodder- knelt at the gently curved stumps that served for his feet, and he peered down on them in the dim magical light.

Like the other oni, Slezu was endlessly slaking his maddening thirst on the abundant misery of the city, his tongue rolling in and out rapidly, but enough of his mind was unoccupied that he noted the far-off, transported looks he was receiving. Those were the eyes of unthinking zealots *and* hungry oni, Slezu thought. In the middle of this contemplation, the oni heard Marak pause for air.

“Marak…” The demon cooed in a soothing androgynous voice, and the conjurer looked over, the fire in his eyes immediately cowed.

“I was being cautious, when I refused to let them so close to the enclave.” The conjurer said glumly, making the excuse before Slezu could make any critique.

Slezu shrugged, and turned his head dismissively. Marak’s shoulders slumped. Although theoretically their pact made him the master of this little domain, his own reverence of the oni empowered the silent rebuke, and his heart was polluted by self-doubt.

Slezu felt it, and cursed the conjurer for his erratic spirit. All the oni needed the fleshling to endure.

“I am *most* impressed with the agents you wisely chose.” Slezu said, his voice brimming with convincing praise. “Keeping the pact may be straining you, but *rest* assured, there is no reason for you to doubt them now.”

Marak’s eyes were empty, and they drifted from one thing to another for some moments. He was comforted, and searched his mind in vain for the source of his earlier violence and despair. He felt less potent, but for now he was at ease, and his energy would return to him in time- he was sure.

<<>><<>>

Bao Ren twisted the tip of his pointed beard- which had become all the rage amongst members of the Jade Brotherhood- and sniffed sharply through his pointed nose. He had innovated the style himself, but didn’t bother to share the fact with any of his comrades who didn‘t already concede it was the truth. So many pretenders had made the same claim by now that there was no prestige attached any more.

“This isn’t much of a map.” He said critically to the man before him, sneering into the parchment he was presenting. The high, nasal whine of Ren’s voice caused some of his subordinates to shudder behind him. It always did. When they were behind him.

“Eh now!” The shabbily dressed man boomed, agitated. “I’m no’ a steady hand, so that’s why I went and *labelled* it!”

Niklaus, a common mugger who usually stalked the streets surrounding the market, jabbed one of his meaty fingers at his own scrawling and squinted hard at a portion of the “text”. It was some time before he followed the gesture with an angry bark.

“Grenth take me, forget the map, follow me an’ watch me arse!”

Ren shut his eyes and sighed, his left hand leaving his chin to rub his aching head. Eventually, he pinched his nose between his index and thumb, and groaned. At this rate, his detachment would be in place long after the other two groups had joined the battle with the Maraki cultists and their many pet oni.

Around him, his jade brothers filed forward after the criminal. Ren opened his eyes narrowly, and fell into step with them, seething over having been inconvenienced by such an irrelevant primitive.

Niklaus was jogging ahead of them, and soon the brotherhood soldiers were following suit. Ren was sure to hurry his men whenever the thief got too far ahead. If the man was trying to escape, Ren would at least take his life before he lost his own for failing to join the assault.

The large formation ran in almost perfect step, and with the strong wind beating into their ears, they were not able to hear the thunder of their own footfalls as they unknowingly approached their destination.

<<>><<>>

It was as though the drums of war had begun to beat in the middle distance, and many eyes well accustomed to the darkness snapped west, as though they might have spied their foes pouring over the invisible horizon.

The sheer blatancy of the approach left Limha doubting that it was the Jade Brotherhood at all.

The necromancer reclined, her abundant curves sinking deeply into the expensive furniture. It was one of the great many luxuries Marak had lavished upon her in exchange for her methodical, tactical mind- although he usually ignored her council; and for her body- although he hadn’t yet found her willing.

Her chamber was illuminated by a hundred dim blue candles, and their light wobbled as the tremendous noise coursed through the walls of the pagoda, even down to her on the fifth “basement” floor. She fondled the nape of her neck as her eyes searched the ceiling.

The beat was acting like a siren, spurring the helots, zealots, fighters, mercenaries and- she imagined- also the oni into readiness.

She turned her pale lips in irritation, her brow creasing. She knew that she would have to join them, and that her journey toward lichdom would be delayed by precisely the time it took to turn back the assault. It did not occur to Limha that the Maraki cult would fall, so long as she attended them; only that any delay at all was by default much too long.

“Yes.” She whispered breathily as she checked her headdress. Her coal black hair was bound by thin silver ringlets into two small bunches with loose ends that were precisely even, and her fringe was kept in neat curtains which were not quite long enough to reach her mouth. Her vanity satisfied, she stood lazily. “What a bother.”

<tbc>

#3

Selrik let out a cry and stamped, the rickety boards of the Skyway bridge threatening to let his foot crash through them. His fists shook heavily by his sides, suddenly hot where before the icy wind had almost made them numb. He was a bear of a man- large enough that his Jade Brotherhood cape looked like a napkin accidentally draped over his back- and the dark, heavily scarred flesh of his face creased into a monstrous countenance as his terror stricken retinue cowered around him. Some yelped as he marched to the corpse of a Maraki cultist and flung it off the bridge with bone jarring force.

That Maraki cultist had been one of at least a dozen who were posted at the largest entrance to the oni-worshipper’s enclave, their hacked remains now strewn about in vast pools of cooling blood and viscera. Not a single Brotherhood soldier lay dead with them. All who watched Selrik were praying to their preferred gods that this wasn’t about to be undone.

The giant warrior heaved with his breaths. The passing minutes gradually saw the inferno within him cool. He finally spoke to his soldiers, in as level a fashion as his thunderously deep voice allowed.

“Curse his filthy hide, Ren hasn’t totally spent our plan yet!” He grasped his bearded chin, and his eyes scanned the floor before they flashed full of danger again. “We were supposed to force them to deploy on the south side!” He bellowed once more, losing his train of thought and raging over his lieutenant’s stupidity instead. “Ren doesn’t have the numbers to tie up their defences!”

“If we leave right no--” A young Jade warrior stepped out of the frightened throng to speak his mind, but Selrik cut him off with a baleful look.

“Won’t make any difference; the Marakites won’t join with *this* force in a pitched battle and spread themselves along the south when they *know* there’s someone coming from the west… ‘soon as they realise this is the largest force, they’ll divert everything they don’t need to hold us, and crush the hammers of our anvil.” The towering man explained almost calmly, then fell silent.

His men never failed to look taken aback when he came out with genuine strategic knowledge. Probably because he preferred the headlong charge even when he knew of a better way; but not when Limha was the one scheming against him. His whole demeanour soured.

“Cold bitch.” He snapped under his breath.

“So then-” The same young man started, and Selrik simply interrupted him with his more powerful voice.

“We’ll attack later.” He grunted stiffly, deflecting the weight of condemning Ren and his soldiers. “Let the Marakites stop them on the west side, then commence our attack and hope that the east hammer can make a deathblow on its own; it‘ll work just like we never planned to have two.”

He hoped.

“Someone find that snake Zerces on the east side and tell him to keep his head down until I send him word that says otherwise!”

The spy who had delivered the news of Ren’s reckless advance and the alarm in the tunnels leading to the enclave finally stepped forward again, his sneering features drawn with worry.

“On your way!” Selrik roared the second he spotted him, and the darkly dressed figure flashed out of view at a terrified sprint.

<<>><<>>

Bao Ren grit his teeth as he pulled his hand-axe from the chest of the last cultist in the area, dislodging it from the dying man with a struggling girlish yell and getting a mouthful of bloody flecks. The taste had been there already, the copper stink of the tiny battleground cloying in his thin nostrils at the very start and invading his other orifices that way. Nevertheless, his fortitude wavered, and his stomach lurched threateningly. He spat, but it did little good.

Niklaus lay dead, slain as he over-stepped the line on his own map and ventured into the den of alert guards. There had been at least ten, and Ren frowned as he counted the six who lay dead, dreading the fact that at least four had escaped back into the warrens around the enclave- perhaps for reinforcements, but certainly to relay a warning; meaning he would have to lead his three dozen or so men into the darkness straight away, or the whole manoeuvre would be in jeopardy.

The west entrance to the small enclave network looked like nothing other than an abandoned house. All but the most attentive- and those who knew what they sought- would have missed the identifying icon over the door, a depression in the shape of an oni’s hand. The windows of the house- such as they were- offered nothing but a glimpse into the still blackness dividing Ren from his objective, and he froze in his first forward stride as his gaze sank into it.

“You.” He said to his nearest subordinate, his natural voice filling with authority. “You and three others have five minutes to fashion a torch; then you will guide us through *there* to the Marakite enclave.” He explained impassively, nodding toward the building for emphasis.

Without complaint, the Brotherhood soldier immediately chose three fellows and tore the right sleeve of his apparel as he instructed them to kick a plank from the building they were to invade. With time to spare, the plank was broken into two, and the starched, inexpensive material was divided between the two giant match-sticks.

“We‘ll be revealing ourselves to the Marakites!” A young man hissed into Ren’s ear as he watched the four ready themselves. He had approached without the lieutenant hearing him, and Ren started as he turned, blinking in surprise.

The man was one of their few monks. His even but plain features were a mix of concern and fear. For the life of him, Ren couldn’t recall the man’s name.

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this.” Ren blurted, quickly reigning in his voice and reducing his speech to a whisper. “I can’t put my finger on it, but I’ve a churning in my gut and it’s naught to do with the fighting or the plan.”

A look of confusion overtook the monk, and Ren tutted impatiently.

“Between our leaving this morning and our arriving here, something has changed for the worse, I’d stake everyone’s lives on it.” The lieutenant was hissing his words, careful not to share his anxiety with anyone but the man adjacent to him.

Perhaps the monk had meant to reply, but Ren’s attention was lost in the next moment as the four lit their make-shift torches. Two bore the weak lights, and the other two spun their weapons at ready in their hands.

“We’d better get going.” One of them said, pushing the door open and ducking inside.

Ren threw his left arm over his head in a gesture for the others, and again they filed ahead of him, slinking one by one into the lingering, flickering torchlight which bobbed a short way in front. The look of the procession filled him with unexplainable dread. The lesser commander took a place in the middle of the throng, trying to keep the panic that welled up in him off his face until it was wreathed like everything else in near darkness.

The first thing that struck him was the silence. Then just how sharply their shuffling feet were breaking it. He was desperate to urge his underlings to tread more quietly, but knew they could not. Never before had he felt so endangered before or during a fight. He wondered for a time whether he were walking on ice, not truly realising that he was cold with subconscious fear, the coward in him bashing the inner walls of his psyche, begging him to turn back.

It was sudden.

A man next to Ren screamed horridly as something clicked under his foot, one of a dozen caltrops strewn about which had been luckily avoided by the men ahead of him. Such was the state of Ren’s mind at that point that he barely caught his loosening bladder in time to stop it relaxing completely. His voluntary muscles rebelled, and suddenly he was very conscious of his fear indeed, shaking and gasping for air as men further along the path also cried out in pain. Unable to master the mostly unfamiliar emotions, Ren began to weep openly as a torch fell from a dead hand and all descended into chaos.

The sound of bodies falling, of razor sharp blades finding sheathes in the throats of his allies all around him, silencing their pleas for orders, for healing, and not uncommonly for their parents. The rational part of Ren’s mind floundered. He had been right about this place. Somehow they were expecting him, had prepared for him and his Jade brothers.

In the gloom, through waterlogged eyes, the doom stricken man found the shape of something bolted to the wall; a crescent shaped hook, the likes of which usually bore a lamp with a candle.

“They took…” He gibbered, falling to his knees as something collided with his back.

In under five minutes, silence was upon the wide wooden corridor again, save for the weeping and begging of the Lieutenant Bao Ren himself, prayers and curses and invocations spilling incoherently from his trembling lips as metal clashed with metal and the candles returned to life. A gloved hand grasped his chin, inadvertently pinching his pointed beard, and he looked up at his enemy in the half-light, blinking warm tears away to reveal for a moment the one he was sure would kill him. He bore his teeth, and they chattered as his breaths came through them, his distress expressed in a purely animalistic way as his very sanity threatened to leave him.

Hiyono Mitsuki looked intently down at the broken one as he knelt in the hot blood of his comrades, his empty hands upturned in desperate submission, his axe lying a pace or two behind him.

“Conceal yourselves, slay any intruders.” He heard her say, the thrill plain in her voice. Shapes that hadn’t even registered before disappeared from the corners of his eyes in flash steps. “The powers are frowning on you.” She spoke again, this time talking directly to him, with a look in her eyes so cruel that his heart threatened to stop beating in his chest.

Before he knew it, Ren’s senses collapsed and he fell out cold into the gory muck which stained the wood almost black as it dried.

<tbc>