The Great Ones, Part Three: The Will to Survive
This is apart of the first installment of 'The Great Ones', a Camp Willow plot. The introduction can be found here.
Setting:
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<----> Camp Willow - Infirmary - Main Room <---->
This building is fair size, and is filled with chairs and couches. It is used as a waiting room, for the patients whom are in the recovery. A small fireplace is set up on one of the walls, and a stack of dry wood is set next to it. The hardwood floor of the room is kept swept, and clean. A small fountain of water, that has been channeled from the outside is used to drink out of. A door on the wall leads to the Recovery room, and the other leads to a storage room, where different items are stored.
Characters:
Ayita, a healer
Rorri, a lumberjack
Survivors, a healer and three wounded guards
Kolbjorn, the Viking chief
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<----> Part Three: The Will to Survive <---->
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Dragging herself through the reeds and muck and carnage, Ayita finally grabs at the door of the Infirmary, and collapses through the doorway. "H-Hello?" She gasps out - and is immediately set upon by the survivors. Only one healer remains, and three bloodied beasts are stretched on the cots. "Y-Y'ave t'get out!" She struggles into a cot.
"'Ita!" cries a familiar voice, and there's Rorri, rushing up from the back, a small cut scabbing over above his eyebrow. The lumberjack is toting his woodcutter's axe, but aside from the cut, he looks unharmed. "Where have y' been, we gots to help these otters! They're 'urt! I've been keepin' 'em safe but I can't patch 'em up, they need y' for that." Awkwardness has gone out the window with the descent of total chaos.
"Rorri!" Eyes going wide, Ayita lets out a chocked bark of relieved laughter. "Y-Yeah, that's why I'm 'ere." She sighs, hauling herself back upright. "Y'need t'get /out of 'ere/, though!"
"I can't /leave,/" the riverdog argues, shaking his head and jabbing a finger at the door. "It's bedlam out there! I'm the only one in 'ere who ain't leakin' everywhere. They /need me/ just like they need /you./" Stubborn as always, Rorri will not be moved.
Ayita growls, and spins around, grappling the edge of a cot for support as she throws herself at the first injured otter. "Okay, I need all th'gauze y'cin find an'... cayenne." It's really all they have time for. "An' then we need t'get everyone /out/ of 'ere - down th'river or somethin'. They're in the South Grounds - it's..." She shakes her head, clearing the tears threatening to cloud her vision again. "I jus'...Gauze! I need gauze."
"Well someone get her gauze!" Rorri barks, moving to stand by the door to keep watch.
The one other healer snaps to it, arms full of gauze upon her return. She doesn't focus on making her patch work 'pretty', but she does her best with what she has. "It'll 'ave t'do." She growls, paws shaking as she ties a knot off. "Y'...Y'okay?" She asks the other otter over her shoulder, even as her fingers fumble at the wounds. None of them are okay.
Rorri isn't okay. He's peering busily, nervously, out the window. He's not a warrior. His axe is made for cutting wood, not... limbs. It's not even bloody. He probably got that cut from a stick.
Breathing deep, she patches up the first as best as she can, and the other healer sets to helping her with the second. "Anyone yet?" Ayita growls, stuffing a wad of the material in a particularly deep gouge amid groans of pain from the patient. She sways, gritting her teeth every time the muscles twitch around the arrow in her leg.
"Nothin' yet," Rorri mutters, fingering the blade of his axe. Yep, still sharp. Good. Something good. "Could this day get any worse?"
Shoving them to their feet, Ayita groans as she takes the weight of one of the injured across her shoulders, blood spurting from the arrow still jabbed through her calf. "Rorri!" She grunts towards the remaining beast - the other surviving healer has the other. "/Go/." She's trying to drag her charge back towards the door. They have to get out.
"I ain't leavin' you!" Rorri yells, the same stubborn if unskilled guardian as always. "Not with alla Dark /Forest/ on display out there! We goes together!" The dog kicks the door open, his axe brandished half-heartedly against any impending raiders. He's short, but he's strong, even if he doesn't know much about this whole 'fighting' business.
"I'm not /sayin'/ t'leave me - I jus' can't /carry these by myself/ y'dolt!" Dragging the injured otter, she only makes it as far as the door before her leg gives out beneath her weight - and the ottermaid growls as she hits the ground, her charge managing to grab the wall for support, if only barely. This is ridiculous... "I need t'" Her paws scrabble through her kit - still stuffed full of gauze, digs free a tiny knife - meant for small surgical procedures... Just like this one. Gritting her teeth, she jabs it into her leg and splits the flesh and muscle apart surrounding the barbed arrow head and wrenches it free - the gauze is stuffed into it as she lets out a cry. Shaking, tears streaking down her cheeks as the edges of her vision blur, Ayita ties the gauze around the hole in her calf. "G-Go, we need t'go!" And then she is struggling upright, reaching a paw out towards Rorri - or /anybeast/. "The /river/." Their time is running short.
The door to the infirmary suddenly, abruptly bursts open. Someone kicked it down. This is where they said the last otters were. Kolbjorn strides in covered in blood, river mud, and the smell of adrenaline. In spite of his injuries and the cuts streaming blood down the side of his face, he carries himself tall, calm, and proud. He still has an axe, which he lets hang limp in his paw. Other Vikings have already gone around the other end of the building to cut off escape, and fill out the room quickly, quietly. Kolbjorn stares hard at Ayita. His gaze flicks down at her wound. Then he glances to Rorri. Step by bloody step, he starts to walk slowly towards them.
"C'mon!" Latching onto her, Rorri puts her arm around his shoulder, starting to hobble along with her before realizing that it's not what anyone would consider 'fast.' "Fergit this, get on me shoulder!" He bends over, grabbing a hold of her uninjured leg, and tosses her sideways across his shoulders just as Kolbjorn bursts through the door. The axe hanging limply in one paw is not easy to swing with someone on your back. "Ita I gots t' put y' down," he mutters, almost apologetically, before shrugging her a little more roughly than he'd like to have onto the floor. The axe comes up into both paws. "Stay back, y- y' devil!"
How many times did she say to run?! As the door crashes open and Rorri re-deposits her on the ground, Ayita staggers backwards a step. "N-" Her throat closes - she's too frightened to even speak. "Please -" Taut, terrified; she isn't pleading with the Viking. It's Rorri. The healer and the three wounded could still make an escape through the Recovery Room window... And the otter limps towards the Marten. The only weapon she has is the knife she cut the arrow out of her leg with - she holds this, nervously, in front of her. The four remaining survivors are making an effort to escape - their last chance - as she steps next to Rorri. She would only slow them down. "Have y'not done enough?" She finally asks, her voice hoarse, and she takes a step forward - knife held aloft.
Kolbjorn continues forward. Step. By step. He drops his axe on a bed, showing no concern about Rorri's weapon, and picks up a rag. He wipes his paws, then his face, carefully cleaning it, daubing away the blood and river moss. His eyes are no longer so wild, but still keen. Sharp. It almost hurts to have him look at you, because the soul behind them has no promise of kindness. He flings away the rag and focuses that stare straight at Ayita, meeting her eyes without hesitation. For several moments he just... looks. At her, then the knife. He almost gently takes hold of her paw and pushes the knife down. His fingers gently touch her cheek, sliding down to her jawline, where they stop to cup her chin. His grip tightens as he turns her gaze up, so they see eye-to-eye. "Yes. It is done," he answers, his voice a quiet rumble. "And all that is left... is your surrender. To /me./"
"You don't touch her, y' /demon!/" Rorri's backward skip and forward lunge initiate and continue the swing of his axe, aiming to chop Kolbjorn's arm off, or hit him in the torso, or... something. Something that /hurts./ He's short, but there's still some serious power behind that blow, and seasons of chopping wood have taught him how to swing it, if nothing else.
There's a strangled sob from the ottermaid. Ayita tries to speak, but the words aren't coming. Finally, she swallows at the lump in her throat. "Let'em go." She pleads, jerking her head away from his paw, even as Rorri attacks. She drops backwards, falling splayed across the ground and trying to scramble up and back. "RORRI, NO!" She cries out, desperately trying to crawl up the wall, even as the blood soaks completely through the hack-job bandaging she tied around herself. But, as she claws her way upright and tries to put her useless self in the fray: the blood loss takes its hold on her - finally bringing her to her knees. She wavers there a moment, and then collapses sideways, slowly losing her grip on consciousness, sinking into darkness. "/Run/."
Kolbjorn turns calmly to Rorri, barely blinking as a shield is brought up between him and the axe. The Northeners are already rushing forward to defend their leader, dogpiling Rorri to seize his axe and lay into him with sword pommels and fists. Kolbjorn looks up at the ceiling, heedless of the melee right at his feet, and closes his eyes, raising his paws. "Victory hard fought is best earned," he whispers, and when his paws drop, the raiders howl, and begin the sack of Camp Willow.
Setting:
Camp Willow: Inlet
<----> Camp Willow - Inlet <---->
The waters seem to be flowing with a slight more vengeance, sending water flowing faster in the main current, than at either side of the current. Reeds and tall cattails poke out at the shore, which is sandy and full of riverstones, like headfur from a scalp. The reeds are spread thickly, hiding anything and everything from view. Smoke trails cannot be seen from the camp, since they were already dissipated in the wind.
Characters:
Survivors, various residents
Liask, a guard
Esgyrn, a fisher
Shoving the reeds aside as they struggle away from the carnage, the lucky few who manage to escape are stumbling their ways to freedom. One guard, limping heavily, falls on the path.
Lucky. Now there is an ironic term. Their homes destroyed, friends slaughtered before their eyes; yes, real lucky indeed.
There is a second guard to this path traveling not too far behind. The scraggly otter walks with a slump. His cloths are untorn, the sword in his paw is unstained by blood. Liask walks in stunned silence, looking at his fellow guard for a long moment before it registers that he needs help. Silently he moves forward, leaning down to one knee to see if he can help the beast to his feet.
"Get t' th' river, get t' th' river!" is all poor Esgyrn can think to do, bewildered and bemoaning, running and running until her paws are met with soft, squishy, loamy soil - a small comfort for the destruction she's just seen wrought on the quaint little camp. She's cutting through the tall grasses from another path, rustling her way until she's joined to the one where familiar silhouettes can be seen against the twinkling water of the inlet. "Who's that? Who's there?"
Not Trinket - or scores of their other brethren. "Thanks." The guard mutters as Liask helps him up, his ears pricking forward as Esgyrn calls out. The scattering of other escaped otters can't seem to decide whether to stop or keep going, and there is a healthy mix of both - they want to put as much distance between them and this carnage. This horror. The danger still lurks behind them. "Jus' us." Is the guard's half-hearted, defeated reply to Esgyrn. "We're makin' f'the river."
Liask turns abruptly, nearly dropping the wounded warrior in the process. He opens his muzzle to speak but quietly closes it. He felt...numb. Liask wasn't in the village for more than half a season, he only knew a few well enough to call friends.
Of which all were killed in front of him.
Suffice to say this was NOT a good day. The otter doesn't even wave. He moves like a machine, throwing the wounded otter's arm over his shoulder to support him.
"Aye, the river - the river will know where to take us," murmurs the maid, just noticing her torn tunic but still ignoring her wound. Esgyrn rips the dangling leather off to create a strip and holds it out to the pair of guards. It could serve as a makeshift bandage.
Finally reaching the inlet, the battered survivors escape into the comforting familiarity of it - even the injured find the going easier, though the water may burn at their wounds, it supports their bodies and helps them along. "C'mon... Erk -" The guard grunts, sliding his grip off Liask and dropping into the water - the survivors stick together, though some groups take different paths once they drift far enough away.
Liask only nods. He just can't summon his voice while being distracted by the vivid images of those he left behind; abandoned to their fates to save his own skin. He's alive though! That's all that matters in the end...
...right?
The ex otter guard sticks with his wounded companion as he enters the water. The river will guide them where they need to go indeed. And hopefully away from here...
Camp Willow has fallen, leaving the Viking raiders to terrorize whatever – and whoever – is left. Those that managed to escape now flee into the surrounding woods, desperate and injured. The situation has never seemed more hopeless for the otters of Camp Willow… And the threat of attack looms heavy over the rest of Mossflower.
Groups:
