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The Survivor, Part Two
Using the halberd, he convinced them that they should not. He repeated his demand, and this time one of the men pointed a finger towards the chest in the corner. He moved towards it whilst carefully watching the guards for any sign of movement, but they just stared at him with fear in their eyes. He opened the chest, and sure enough he found his long sword and his gold coins, in a small leather pouch. He gripped the weapon and felt its reassuring weight in his hands, and swung it a few times for practice. Then he tied the pouch to his belt and left the garrison, leaving behind 6 terrorized guards, a lot of blood and 2 dead bodies. Now with his money in his pocket and his massive sword in its scabbard, he walked the streets of the city. He went to a tavern and bought himself something to eat, and it was when he had just finished his meal that a group of guards like the ones he had been fighting earlier that day slammed open the door and marched in. They were obviously searching for someone, as they were looking to the left and right, and Athanel didn't have a hard time guessing who it was. He lowered his head and prayed to Loec, the God of Shadows, but the god let him down and he saw one of the guards pointing at him with his halberd and whispering orders to his unit. Swiftly Athanel got up and drew his sword, and engaged the soldiers with a roar. He swung the ithilmar blade in an arc of death aiming directly at the front guards' forehead. The man made a feeble attempt to block the blow with his own weapon, but the heavy elven sword smashed the shaft of the halberd asunder effortlessly and continued its path, cutting him in two. This had an instant effect on the other guards, who all backed away to keep the deadly swordsman at what they judged was a safe distance. Without any more resistance Athanel left the tavern, running as fast as he could as soon as he had shut the door behind him. He was detected by a patrol of soldiers armed with swords, and in an attempt to loose them he ran down another street. But even though he was an elf and normally faster than a human, the weight of his sword was slowing him down, and the Bretonnian soldiers were closing in. With a curse he drew the massive weapon, and after a last look at the ornate blade, he tossed it away into the gutter. Without the weight of his bulky two-handed sword he quickly gained speed, and five minutes later he had escaped them, for now. But soon another patrol spotted him, and as such he ran about in the city, escaping one patrol after another. He turned around a corner and ran down a narrow street, and he could hear the sound of heavy boots running a few meters or so behind him. Then, to his horror, he saw another patrol at the end of the street. They were waiting for him, he could tell from the two rows of spears pointing in his direction, making all thoughts of passing through futile. He looked around to spot a route of escape, but found none. Then his gaze fell upon a sewer in the gutter, roughly 5 meters in front of the spearmen. Someone had extended the size of it to allow slightly smaller than human sized creatures to pass though, but about whom it was he could only guess. And at the moment, he did not care either. He sprinted towards the hole in the street as if all the devils of chaos were snapping at his heels, and with a prayer to Isha, the Goddess of Life, he jumped feet down into the dirty darkness of the sewer. A smell of rot and disease surrounded him, he could hear the amazed shouts of the guards on the street, and then darkness was all he could see. * * * Athanel opened his eyes and found that he was in a tunnel of some sort, and he could faintly hear a pair of high pitched voices discussing, although he was not close enough to pick out the words. He judged that the pair was to his left, and silently he got up and moved towards them. He was getting rapidly closer he could hear, and around a corner suddenly the tunnel became smaller, finally leading to a primitive wooden door. He could hear the two voices clearly now, but despite that he could not make any sense of it, it was just chittering. He thought a prayer, drew a dagger that had been hidden in one of his boots and then silently opened the door. He slipped inside without a sound and after closing the door behind him he wrapped his dark fur cloak around him to cover his silver armour, and melted into the shadows. Now that he was not standing out in the open anymore he had time to take a look around, and he found that he was in a large cave of some sort. He could not see if it had been created by Isha or some mortal being, for the sides of the cave were riddles with creeks and holes. Still the floor flat, as if it had been trampled upon by untold numbers of feet. The cave was about 50 meters square, and in the middle a greenish orb glowed, lighting up the room with a faint green light. In the opposite end of the cave Athanel could see a door. He looked around to spot any guards, but found none. Still, his 6th sense told him that something was wrong. He could not put his finger on what it was, but there was definitely something. Carefully he moved forward, still hidden by the shadows, and suddenly he got a feeling that someone was watching him. He looked behind him, but found nothing. He tried to spot anything moving in the numerous holes in the walls, but again he found nothing. Then it struck him, the green orb! He moved cautiously towards it, looking behind as he advanced. But no one attacked him, and soon he was standing by the orb. He was fascinated by it, it was as if its insides were a swirling mist, ever moving and changing. Suddenly a shower of sparks erupted from his shoulder plate and a misshapen metal star flew by his face, and the elf took up fighting position in an instant, scouring the cracks and crevasses for his any sign of movement. Suddenly he picked up a hissing sound, and ducked just in time to see another throwing star pass right over his head, only to hit the green orb. The star crashed through the sphere effortlessly, and to his horror Athanel saw that the green mist inside the globe was gas. His vision began to turn cloudy and he found it hard to breathe, and in panic he ran towards what he judged to be the door. It was not. Instead he had run into one of the holes in the walls, and he could feel it becoming narrower as he ran from the gas. Then suddenly the small tunnel ended, and there was just a flat wall. Athanel could feel his stomach burn from the effects of the corrosive gas, and he was almost blind. In a futile, panicked attempt to escape death he repeatedly slammed his fists into the ground beneath him, but his punches were loosing power. Then the floor collapsed under him. He tumbled face first into the underground river, and the roaring, black waters quickly dragged him away from the lethal gas. For hours he wrestled with the waters to keep his head above the surface. And then finally the waters began to calm and soon the river was flowing slowly and silently. He had no idea how long time he had been in the freezing waters when he felt his body hit an underwater sand dune, but he managed to drag himself ashore and passed out. * * * A green light shining into his eyes, and partly blinding him, waked Athanel up. In an instant he panicked and crawled backwards with spasmodic moves, but then he regained his cool and lay still again, listening to hear if his sounds had alerted any guard. It seemed not, and he looked towards the green light again to see what had caused him to reach in such a way. And recognized another green orb. He looked at it for a fraction of a second, then skimmed the cave he was in for any ways out. He saw a lot of doors in the walls, and trusting his 6th sense he moved towards one of them, a large wooden door with a metal triangle made from 3 blades on. He knew this symbol; it was the Skaven symbol for power. He moved carefully towards it, opened the door a little, then wrapped his cloak around his dagger and pushed it a little inside. Not surprisingly, a rusty halberd bore down upon it and cut it clean in two where his shoulder would have been. He quickly withdrew his dagger from the torn cloak, picked up a rather large stone and then, judging that he might as well use the element of speed to his advantage, he jumped into the room. He threw the stone as hard as he could in direction of where he judged the guard to be and sure enough the stone hit home with a sickening crunch as it shattered the rat-mans skull. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a shadow moving very fast towards him, and he barely had time to dodge the other guards' halberd as it came down aimed at his chest. Knowing that he had to rely on his superior speed to defeat this enemy, he jumped back and forth, dodging one blow after another. He could see his enemy was beginning to tire, but he knew better than to attack yet. After all, he had just a dagger and one blow was all he would get, it would therefore not be good if that blow was dodged. A good hour went by before Athanel judged his opponent to be weak enough to attack directly, and with a swift move he swung the dagger towards the chest of the rat-man. Then the worst thing possible happened; the rat-man brought the shaft of his halberd up in panic, and with incredible luck hit the blade of the dagger in a way so that it flew into the black emptiness of one of the cracks in the wall. A vicious smile crept over his opponent's fanged mouth, and then it raised its halberd and engaged Athanel with series of insane hacks. It had lost all thoughts of defending itself, and the elf could see that it was slowly working itself into a frenzy of hacking and slashing. If the odds had been bad before, they were horrible now. Athanel was hack by hack forced backwards towards the inevitable. All too soon he felt the cold, dirty cave wall against his back, and ducked a thrust aimed at his head. The large metal head of the weapon hit his helmet making his ears ring and small white dots flow by his eyes. The Skaven soldier saw that the elf was dazzled from the blow, and swung the halberd in a great arc towards Athanel's chest. It hit his chest plate with enormous force, and Athanel felt a few of his ribs crack. He was flung through the air towards the door, and when he hit the ground he could dimly see the Skaven moving towards him, mocking him in its own tongue. He tried to get up, but a hard punch with the blunt side of the halberd sent him to the ground once more. There was nothing he could do. His body was in pain, his mind was as if covered by a haze. Gradually he accepted defeat, and closed his eyes waiting for the decapitating blow that was sure to come. But when he closed his eyes, he heard a voice in his mind. It sounded like his father, but at the same time like something greater, something that was beyond the mortal world. The voice burned with barely held power as it spoke, and Athanel felt power surge through him. He was a High Elf! High Elves cannot be defeated, High Elves had ruled the world before and would do so again one day! His assailant was merely a mutant spawned in the darkness of the depths of earth, worth nothing! The voice gave him strength, and his mouth opened and let out a thundering roar that rang through the tunnels and echoed back and forth in the caves: "SHI'AN ASURYATH!!!" ...Or in Old Worldish: "We are the children of Asuryan!!!" His opponent jumped into the air with a twitch, and almost dropped his halberd. Athanel rolled around despite the incredible pain in his chest and grabbed the dead guards' halberd, and with enormous power that was not his own he threw it straight towards the Skavens' head. The rat-man had no time to react and the heavy weapon tore his head apart in a shower of skull fragments, gore and brain. After lying on the ground for a few moments Athanel dragged his worn body up in a standing posture and had for the first time opportunity to take a look at the room. It was like the other caves he had been in, albeit smaller. In the middle was a large altar, and upon it Athanel saw the largest axe he had ever seen in his life and that was saying something! He moved towards it and dusted it off. Now he could clearly see that it was elven made, and from the engraved runes he could tell that it was very old, perhaps even from before the time of The Sundering. When he gripped it in his hand he found that it was surprisingly easy to wield for its massive size, surely magic was involved here. He stuck its shaft into his scabbard and turned around. He was about to leave the room when he noticed another altar further down the room; another item placed upon it. As he approached and dusted it off, he saw that upon it was a fine breastplate. He threw away his own, which had been battered and punctured by the slashes of the vicious guard, and put the new one on. Immediately he felt healing and protective power surging through his body and he could see it as a faint haze of blue energy around him. Confident that this equipment would protect him from harm, he marched out of the cave with the altars and began opening the other doors in the cave with the underground river, one by one. One of them led to a tunnel heading upwards, and this one he entered. After a few hours of climbing he could see daylight, and he headed for it. It was a sewer like the one he had entered the underground tunnels by, although this one was smaller and had metal bars crisscrossing over it. He drew his axe and with a mighty swing the metal bars were smashed aside. Another few hacks and thrusts, and the sewer was wide enough for him to pass through. He crawled up into the street and, smelling fish and salty water, he decided to seek out a tavern and get something to eat. He quickly made his way to the harbor, and sought out a tavern. Inside it he bought a potion of fish soup and sat down to eat. Normally he would not even have given this to his steed, but his burning hunger did not allow him to throw it away. He did not talk to anyone; he just placed himself in a dark corner and ate. Still, his shiny armour and heavy gold pouch were bound to draw attention in a place like this, and sure enough, as soon as he got outside again 4 large fishermen confronted him. Athanel drew his axe and took up a defending position, but it was as if the axe had other plans. It forced him forward, and he was bound to attack. The first mighty swing took the heads off two of the robbers, the second cut open the belly of the third robber and the last swing cut the remaining man clean in two. Being an elf in Couronne was bad enough, but being an elf and killing 7 people, of which 3 had been royal guards, was bound to get him hanged. He quickly sought out the captains' guild and found the one with the largest ship. At first he refused to go to Ulthuan at any cost, but as Athanel told him about the wealth of Lothern he gradually changed his mind. At last he agreed. * * * They had been at sea for 7 weeks, and at last Athanel could dimly see the towers of Lothern in the horizon. Suddenly the memories came flowing back to him, in a seemingly endless tide. He had been a mighty general and had had a beautiful wife and 2 children. Everything had been joy. But one day when his wife had been in the woods collecting healing herbs and plants with the children, she had been captured by a Slaaneshi warband. They had sacrificed her to their twisted patron and moved on, and when Athanel found her 2 days later something inside him had broken. Gradually he had begun thinking of nothing but the destruction of the Chaos worshippers, and one day he had received word from a merchant that the very same warband that had killed his dear wife had been sighted raiding small settlements near Couronne. Burning with anger he had swiftly prepared a war fleet, and the inevitable battle that had followed a few weeks later had been bloody indeed. Despite being outnumbered 1 to 2, because of Athanel's superior tactics not a single Slaaneshi cultist had escaped alive. But all the High Elves including Athanel's brothers had died too. The only survivor had been Athanel, and he had been so badly wounded in the battle that he had not known anything but his name and his origins. Athanel swore by Asuryan, his life and his immortal soul not to rest until he has killed every single enemy of the High Elves in the world, and he has done everything he could to do just that ever since. There is nothing left in the world for Athanel but war. He fights with grim determination and utter ruthlessness, and is known to enter the bloodiest of fights and still come out victorious. This viciousness has led him to be accused of being more like one of the Twisted Kin than one of the Light Kin, which in Ulthuan is the same as death. However, all that has said this has had horrible accidents before they could be brought to court, most recent being Kelariendir Feanel, the son of a wealthy merchant, who was killed when a massive vase fell from its normal place above his bed and hit him in the head. Now people simply keep quiet. Athanel Ilthaen can usually be sighted mounted on a massive elven steed, leading his Silver Helms into battle with his massive ancient battleaxe in hand. This headless attitude has lead to him being extremely badly wounded several times over the centuries, but nevertheless the tough elf has always come back for another battle. Some say that he has been chosen by the elven gods and cannot be killed, others that he has died many times but has been brought back to life by the magic of the Goddess of Life, Isha (and a few say by more sinister means). Whatever is right, one thing is sure: he has remained true to his oath. * * * THE END * * *

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