07-15-05
Characters involved: Dosu & Keita.
Halyard Village: West Square
Dosu treds silently down the dimly lit path along with Keita, persuing Zeraph and the other escapeese. Blood drips from his paws and face, but he dosn't seem to care. The only thing that he is worried about at the moment is another group of vermin attacking.
Dodging through alleyways and down paths, Keita needn't even rely on her keen knowledge of the village to find her way out - the occasional appearance of dead vermin and captives alike littering the path show the way well enough. It seems that Keita and Dosu's way has been pretty much cleared - until Keita comes upon a clear. There, at the edge of the clearing where forest meets village, a group of vermin are in the process of dealing with some of the captives. One, dead, already lies at their feet. The doe comes to a jerking halt.
Dosu bends down slightly as he rushes by Keita at full speed, heading straight for the group of vermin. His arms out behind him with what seems to be two, small double bladed knives in his paws.
Keita seems quite content to just stand there and not confront the vermin, but... well. They /are/ standing in the way and all. Oh snap. Keita gets a firmer grip on her knife and jogs after Dosu and towards the awaiting vermin. Mutter. "... Righ', this is smart."
Dosu hits the dirt and slides by as another marten attempts a cross cut with his long sword, and lodges one of the small blades into the other martens legs. This causes him to fall flat on his back, and not a moment later is met swiftly with Dosu's other blade through the jugular vein. And as soon as the blade peirces the flesh, Dosu is off and running again.
And of course, it's Keita's luck to be met not by a nice small ferret, noooo. Instead, it's a rat. Cursing grimly as the rat comes for her, Keita does the first that comes to mind when the rat swipes his short sword at her - she ducks, and drops to the ground. "Bloody...!" She drops the knife in the process, and scrambles after it on paws and knees. Perhaps not the smartest thing she's ever done. Taking advantage of her position, the rat draws back his booted footpaw and kicks - hard. As hard as he can. The kick connects squarely with her ribs, and with a gasping shout she tumbles over onto her back, choking. The doe's grasping something in her paws, now, though - the knife she dropped.
Dosu falls back on one paw, sliding under a swinging bastard sword of a good sized stoat. In return, he quickly grasps the long skinny handle of his own sword, pulling it from his back and taking a long ranged corss slash at the stoat. Unfortunatly in his haste, Dosu's slash is a little bit lower than expected, and slices through both of the stoat's legs, just above the knees before continuing down into the ground. The stoat falls face first on the ground, screaming in agony as he flails about. But Dosu calmly places his booted footpaw on the stoats back, holding him still as he brings the massive sword down for one final chop. There is an eerie silence after this while he flings the bloodied sword up over his shoulder and onto his back, then looking over to Keita and her little predicament.
Breaking the eerie silence, the rat spits out the side of his mouth as he glares down at Keita. "Stupid long ears... on the ground where ya belong." He lifts his paw again, but this time instead of kicking, he stomps down just south of where his boot connected before. Keita feels a sick give to her ribs at this last insult to her person, and her body does its best to curl in on itself. She rolls over onto her side, staring through tearing eyes at... what? A boot planted firmly on the ground. The rat's boot. With small gasping breaths, she lifts her dagger arm with what seems to her to be slow motion. However, as the dagger is levered over his foot everything speeds up again, and Keita plunges it with all of her strength into his boot and foot. Yowling in pain, the rat stumbles backwards and away from her and eventually finds himself on the ground, as well, grasping at his boot. Well past caring if he gets up at this point, Keita's body goes back to doing its best to curl in on itself, as a certain amount of groaning goes on. All in a day's work, of course.
The rat manages to get back to his feet, and with eyes filled with anger, he slowly limps over to Keita. But out of the darkness, Dosu appears behind him. He reaches around the rat to cover his mouth. He grins lightly as he whispers only one word into the rat's ear before draging a small double edged blade acrost his throught with his free paw. The rat slumps to the ground, a slight gurgle can be heard, then nothing. Dosu looks around the now empty clearing before walking over and knealing down beside Keita, ".... You okay....?"
Choking because she's coughing, and coughing because she's choking, Keita rolls partially over onto her stomach, her cheek pressed firmly to the cool dirt. It's... comforting, actually. "... Ugh. Yuh-" Cough-choke. "... Yeah." She rolls over onto her back, smarting tears rolling off her temples to either side as she stares up at the sky. "... Gimme a hand?"
Dosu reaches down without a word, only a slight grin on his bloodied face as he helps the hare to her feet. But for her to be able to walk out of there unaided is another question.
Though the process of standing is far more colorful than usual, Keita does make it. "... Thanks. I owe ya... heh. Three." She's partially hunched over, both paws now pressed firmly to her side. She can practically feel it swelling and bruising under her fingers. That would be amusing if the idea didn't make her feel suddenly sick. "Let's... agh." She coughs again, wincingly. "... Let's get outta here."
Dosu sighs lightly as he takes the hare's arm and puts it around his shoulder. "..... Here... Let me help you....", he says as he holds her up straighter.
Keita grits her teeth as she is suddenly straightened, and black blotches appear in her vision. With a sharp shake of her head, though, and a bite to the inside of her cheek, she does her best to fight it. In fact, she actually starts moving forward.
Dosu looks over to Keita and her sudden wave of pain. Turning his gaze to the tree line, then back to her as they hobble along, he sighs as he bends down and picks her up, holding her in both arms as he hurries towards the trees. "..... I'm sorry about this, but we'd be dead in no time if we didn't pick up the pace....". Soon, they dissapear into the darkness of the tree line.
