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Sorry abou the delay, but I've been having quite a tiem of it, lately, just life & the like getting in the ay of digging my claws more into this story. I'm still ahead of where I posted, so here's another Chapter just for giggles.

Enjoy. (^_^)

~ HDE

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Chapter 6 - Rage & Sin

He spat on the floor before him, the dark, cold stone covered in dried blood, both his and those of the prisoners before. He looked up, his head the only thing free in the shackles that held him so utterly helpless. His arms and large feathery wings chained up against the wall behind him, his legs shackled and bolted to the floor.

His gaze looked out the window of the prison. As far as the Aven could tell, he was still in Thead. Though out the window he could only see sky, the sounds that drifted in from the streets below, when there was a lull in the torturous screams from his fellow inmates, were unmistakably the sounds of Thead. He was due to be executed in three days, or so he'd been told. He was only meant to stay in the prison for four years, but prisons didn't agree with him, and his several escape attempts in the month he'd so far been here, had earned him a death sentence.

'Way to go, Nighthawk...' he thought bitterly. His gold eyes stared longingly out of the window, 'How the hell's Shorty gonna find you in here?'

There was a rustle from outside the door, as the guards changed shifts. 'Three days... come on, birdbrain, think...' his mind worked furiously. With all four limbs chained, and his wings also bound, even baring the heavy damage he'd sustained to them, he was in no condition to do much in the way of fighting the guards. If he'd not lost his BladeStaff when he was taken... likely it was in the furnace my now, failing to be boiled down. His eyes narrowed, still looking out the window. His Aven vision focused like a telescope on his target. It was a pigeon. A small courier pigeon with a note tied to it's leg. It fluttered easily through the narrow bars on the window, landing on the chain holding the Aven's left arm. He raised on eyebrow at it.

It cocked it's head at him.

He sighed. "As you can see, you stupid animal, I'm in no state to take that letter from you." he looked back out the window, the pigeon still staring at him from it's perch. "Return to sender, and make it quick."

Of all the things that a bird's beak can do, it's quite difficult to smile. Not for an Aven like Nighthawk, but he was quite a bit more evolved than the little creature next to him. However, for the tiny pigeon, it was a difficult, if not impossible task to grin. That being said, had Nighthawk been gazing at the beast, the look on it's little pigeony face could not be taken any other way, than as a broad smile.

The pigeon fluttered onto the ground before the Aven, pulling the string off of the note with his beak, and letting it fall open on the floor. It then looked at Nighthawk, cooed in that peculiar pigeon way, and took off again, out of the window from whence it came.

Nighthawk looked down at the note. It was short, and the hand writing, or rather hand scrawling, was unmistakable. It said:

Rey,

You're an idiot. I'm on my way.

~ D.E.

Looking back out the window, Rey chuckled, shaking himself as much as he could in his chains. "Took ya long enough, Essencewing..."

* * *

"Can I see your pass please?" the guard asked, his speckled leopard paw resting on the hilt of his sabre, the other paw extended toward the dwarf.

"Pass?" replied the other in his gruff, yet young voice.

"Pass." repeated the guard, his grip tightening on the sabre's hilt. He was new, and wasn't too sure what to do when he came across someone without a pass, especially considering that his only backup had to go off and be sick a few mintes before. Too much partying the night before, he'd said.

"Well, about that--" Damocles began. The leopard drew his sabre.

"You ARE kidding me..." the dwarf's gaze narrowed "You're not serious are you?"

The guard stepped back, entering a stance to prepare himself for a fight. Damocles shook his head, reaching into a small leather pouch at his side, and producing a fine silvery powder from it. He smiled, and blew the pile of powder into the guard's face.

The leopard's immediate reaction was to swung wildly about, sneezing manically for a moment or so, before suddenly stopping, looking quite drunk, then passing out where he stood. Damocles sighed. "I hate it when I have to be sneaky... Essencewings are NOT sneaky people..." and with that, he pulled the unconscious leopard guard off behind a nearby pile of storage barrels, before preceding inside the prison complex.

The complex wasn't all that large. Consisting of only four smaller towers, and a larger tower centred between them all, it was a lot better defended than it at first seemed. Each tower, staggered along it's length, had small windows, just large enough for an archer to lean through and get a near perfect shot from any angle. The massive grey stone seemed to loom before the dwarf, who stood, unfazed, at the task that roared before him.

Somewhere inside this complex, tied up, and momentarily helpless, Damocles knew that his friend was held. Shackled and bound, with only the occasional pigeon for company. The dwarf smiled.

He gripped his Shatterfist, pulling the monstrous battle axe from his back and spinning it with ease in his hand. Crashing it down into the ground, head first, he called out. "OI! NIGHTHAWK!"

Dwarves are not stupid creatures. There are, however, some occasions, with some dwarves, when something bludgeoningly simple passes them by.

In the higher cells of the central tower, Rey's head lifted, hearing a familiar call. He laughed slightly, muttering, "and you call ME the idiot...". The Aven raised his head as high as his chains allowed, opening his beak and letting out a shrill screech, one which echoed through the cold, damp stone of the tower, reverberating to the outer courtyard, where Damocles was just starting to learn how important those bludgeoningly simple thing can be, when missed, as several of the tower guards had also heard his yell, and were now taking it upon themselves to surround the dwarf.

Damocles stepped back a pace, looking behind him at the two panthers, swords drawn, who had chosen to stand in the way of the outer gate. His escape blocked, Essencewing gripped his Shatterfist tight, his gaze narrowing on the nearest of the guards, to his left. For a moment, a shriek from inside the tower took that guards' attention, and in that moment, Damocles moved, knowing full well he'd not get another chance.

With a single lunge, he tore through the guard to his left, his jump's momentum carrying him past the target and to a stop some feet clear of the semi circle of guards forming about him. He smiled.

One of the guards leapt in, his blade raised height, bringing it down upon the dwarf's head. Damocles raised the massive head of his battle axe, blocking the attack effortlessly, and launching the guard behind him into one of the walls that connected the four outer towers of the prison complex. Seeing the dwarf's strength, three other of the guards nodded to one another, tearing into the battle, two with longswords held high, the other with a one handed war axe and steel buckler on his other arm.

The two swordmen panthers who had been blocking the entrance, hacked forward at Essencewing, while their Dracojhan counterpart came down overhead, his axe arcing in for the kill, his buckler held before him, and his face contorted in fury.

Damocles chuckled, taking a small jump backward and pulling a wide swing from his Shatterfist battle axe. The weapon hacked through the first of the panthers, but the other jumped over the two-hander and nimbly leapt in for another attack. The dwarf pulled back his axe, holding it up to catch the incoming attack of the Dracojhan, whom he then flung onto the attacking panther. The panther's blade slipped through the Dracojhan's armour and scales, and the guard let out a piercing cry.

They both landed, the panther near pinned by his wounded comrade, as Damocles stood fast, ready for the next attack.

The tower was roaring with prisoners all yelling various curses at the guards and whoops at whomever the attacker was. All likely hoping that he was there to bust them all out, only one KNOWING he was to get out of here.

Rey cast his gaze at the door, giving a whistle to the guard posted there. After a moment, the door opened, and a human walked in, his troll-bone mail clinking against it's iron fastening rings. His blade, a slender, steel claymore, was before him, his eye narrowing on the Aven. "What is it, Nighthawk..."

"What's going on out there?"

"Heh... you really don't know. Right, sure..." the guard held his blade firm, looking his prison dead in the eye. Rey gazed back, a pleasant smile plastered on his beak.

The Aven said, simply, "I figured it's something to do with me, I'm just wondering what's happening." His face kept calm, as his inside screamed. His left claw was in torment, as it was the only limb out of the guard's direct line of sight, and thus the Aven had been trying to work it free since he'd heard Damocles call from below. It was almost out, but he needed to keep the sword-happy human distracted long enough to finish the job.

"What's happening..." the guard began. "Is that your little friend is going to get slaughtered."

"Really? You sure about that, now, human? Think about it, he came in here, alone, to get me out of this hole, alone. So either he's really stupid, or really good..." the Aven's golden eyes narrowed on the human's auburn ones. ".. now which is it..."

The guard raised his huge blade to the Aven's throat, a sneer creeping over his face. "Well if he does get in, he'll have a dead chicken to welcome hi-- UH!" the guard had undoubtedly wanted to say "him" but it was at that exact moment that Rey's left claw had pulled free from the shackle, and in a flurry of blood and feathers, cracked the human across his jaw. The man dropped to the floor, solidly unconscious, as the Aven reached his free arm down and pried the keys from the guard's belt.

Unlocking himself quickly, Rey stretched his limbed for a moment, unfurling his wings as much as the cramped cell would allow, before turning to the open door into the prison complex.

'First things, first.' he thought. 'My Bladestaff...'

Without so much as a glance at the guard he'd introduced to his claw moments ago, he bolted down the dark corridors of the prison, making for the basement.

Deep below, all prisoner's possessions are melted down in a massive furnace, and remoulded into armour and weapons for the guards. He wasn't worried that his weapon would be destroyed, by any means. He was more worried about it having been in the furnace for hours and being too hot for him to get out of the building, let alone back up Essencewing with it.

The tower was almost silent, as most of the guards had gone to backup their rapidly falling comrades, and within minutes, Rey found himself at the trapdoor to the furnace room, located at the ground level of the tower, hidden back within a large storage shed attached to the main prison complex.

The Aven tore the door open, dropping into it's darkening depths, and landing in a cloud of dust at the bottom of a long ladder leading back up from whence he'd come.

"Good... you're here." the room was far too dark to see the speaker, but the voice sounded human. Rey's amazing eyes couldn't even pierce the dark enough to make out more than a silhouette of the man who stood before him. The voice continued. "You'll be looking for this, no doubt."

Suddenly, throwing into the light from the trapdoor above, Rey's Bladestaff was thrown onto the ground before him. Rey picked the 2 metre, metal quarterstaff, carefully eyeing this stranger. "Thank you... who are you?"

"My name is Janus, though who I am is not important. Your dwarvish friend seems quite adept at killing my men, however... I think he may be running out of steam..." though Rey couldn't see it, Janus's mouth curled into a smile, hidden in the shadows of the room.

Rey's eyes narrowed for a moment, before nodding and bolting up the ladder behind him.

Janus turned, taking a small note from his breast pocket, and tying it to the tail of a small rat he'd concealed in a cage beside the human. He then whispered into the rat's ear, it's ears twitching as if to understand the human, before being placed on the ground and scurrying away with the rest of the rat.

Outside, Janus had been all too right about Damocles. The dwarf was, at this point, surrounded by at least a dozen guards' bodies, and a dozen more standing blade's drawn, eyes on fire with their rage at the sins this dwarf had visited upon them. They burned with hatred, before leaping at him again, all together, in a last ditch attempt to take down the menace. Two of the guards managed to make it to the dwarf, and Essencewing, even through his shock, was able to leap back and lunge his Shatterfist forward, the spike at the top of it's axe head piercing the closest of the two.

The rest of the dozen had been thoroughly surprised by a sudden crack from the sky, and a quarterstaff across their collective heads, stomachs, and/or faces. Rey landed softly, spinning the gold coloured staff above his head, bringing back down upon the nearest of the guards. He was knocked to the ground with little effort, and the Aven used the remaining momentum to carry through the next attack, taking another of the guards in the stomach and throwing him against the nearest wall.

Damocles spun behind the remaining husky guard before him, his vigour returned at the sight of his friend joining the fight. Bringing Shatterfist down onto the guard and severing the husky's sword arm, he then jumped forward, spearing the hound with the axe head, and throwing him to the dust. The dwarf turned, catching the eye of his Aven comrade, who winked and grinned broadly. Damocles chuckled, walking over to his friend, as the remaining half dozen guards who had not been killed, knocked out, or scared off, gathered themselves and stood before the duo.

Rey and Damocles looked at one another, then at the group before them. The guards stepped back a pace, weapon's held shakily in front of them. Nighthawk smiled. "We're leaving." he said simply.

Damocles waved his axe slowly across the dead, and/or wounded across the grounds of the prison complex. "You're welcome to try and stop us." he too smiled.

As the two turned, walking out the front gates of the prison tower, Rey continued. "It really all depends on how stupid you are."

Damocles secured Shatterfist in it's hold on his back, and Rey resumed walking with his Bladestaff as though he were an old traveller hiking up an ancient mountain.

The two warriors, passing the front gates of the prison complex, turned into the busy crowds of the city and seemed to disappear among the grime and riff-raff of Thead. If there's any city in Heldryn, where two battered and broken prison-breakers can simply vanish into the ground, and look perfectly in place, it's the Ports of Thead.

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