Chapter Two: Hombeer Ansith

A Chapter by LucasTaylor

A New Character

“ Go on, hand it over. You lost fair and square.” The referee told the losing competitor.

“ No, he cheated, you saw what I saw too, right? He broke my sword, that's illegal, right?” The combatant looked to the man who had defeated him.

The man was thin, but by no means weak, he had black hair and…

Yellow eyes?

That was odd, but it didn’t really matter to the jealous fighter. He wanted to know what that b******s sword was made of.

It was a jet black blade, about three and a half feet long, it’s crossguard seemed to be a part of the blade, it’s center adorned by a single sapphire. The hilt was covered in a brown leather grip. The pommel itself seemed a tiny dagger, with a jagged edge. Then the man noticed something he hadn’t noticed before, an engraving in the side of the blade. It seemed to read as a foreign word, but the man wanted answers, and fast.

“ Hey, you!” He shouted at his adversary.

“ Come get your damn gold!” The man stood and began to walk over to him. He took the sack of coins, and turned around to leave.

“ Wait,” The loser began.

“ It says Inle’, it means moon, or death.” The man continued to leave.

When the swordsman had went out of earshot, he set the money on the ground and yawned, sheathing his weapon. Ansith opened the bag of prize money, counting it. Fifteen hundred. Perfect. Just enough to purchase a horse. He stood up and started walking

Ansith arrived at a decently cheap inn, paying the owner for a room on the second floor, three doors down to the right. He opened the door, and walked inside. Ansith took in his surroundings, the room seemed to have only two real pieces of furniture. One was a bed, made what seemed to be out of mahogany and cotton.

The other, was a mirror. Ansith now stood in front of it, studying his face and arms for wounds he may have missed. His hair was black, and about halfway down the neck in length. He looked himself in the eye, the eye’s of a wild Lycan staring back at him. He noticed that there was a gash across his cheek, probably from when he broke the man's sword with Inle’s hooked crossguard.

“ That’ll scar…” He mumbled to himself. He hadn't intended to sustain any injuries, but it really didn’t matter to him. He had more important things to worry about.

“ Hraka! I almost forgot, the horse!” He dashed out of the room and sprinted down to the stable outside of the inn. He skidded to a halt in front of the owner of the stable, who looked at Ansith like he was a damned psychopath. He panted, handing the man the gold.

“ I want the gray one…” The man went over to the beast. It was a rather beautiful horse, with a silver-gray mane, and a darker, almost black-gray pelt. Its eyes were a somber brown. But what had gotten Ansith’s attention was a long, deep horizontal scar across its side.

“ Hey buddy, what happened to you?” He walked the animal out the back of the inn, studying the beast as he did so. The scar was obviously deliberate, and seemed to come from a weapon with two points of contact. There was only one weapon that could do that kind of damage to an adult horse.

“ Looks like a halberd got you, you’re a war horse aren’t you?” This inquiry was confirmed when he saw a brand on the animal’s ankle.

“ Yep, and a Hunter war horse, to…” That was odd, Ansith had been enslaved by the Hunters before. They were the organized Elil, dedicated to the eradication of the Lycans. They were cold, brutal, and had no regard for innocent life. He had been told while he was a servant that any animals injured on the battlefield were to be killed if it survived its injuries, they were useless to them then.

“ Then how in Frithrah are you here?” He couldn’t figure out why they would turn an injured animal loose, it made no sense. If a Lycan were to find it, they could trace them back to the owner through scent.

“ And one has…” Ansith whispered, now grinning. Yes, a Lycan he was, and dead man this horse's owner would be.

Ansith had worked for the Lycans for a few years now, after his experience with the Hunters, he had always wanted to see their leader, Nera, be executed. But something was different about him. He could not take on the form of a beast like the others, but rather had the strength and agility of a Lycan even in his human state. But beyond that, not only was he on par with the others in their beast forms, but was actually one of the fastest fighters they had. Therefore he was given the role of reconnaissance and assassination. He had also taught himself how to tell the geometric dimensions of an opponent's weapons at first glance, a nifty trick that had saved his life dozens of times. Being a solo recon unit meant that he never really saw any other Lycans anymore, even when that freak Nosferatu had been defeated, he had been absent from both the battle and the celebration. But Ansith had promised himself, he would be the one to kill Nera, even if it meant dying himself.

And then there was Inle’, he broad rapier. It was a weapon that he had forged himself, the metal he had used came from a meteor, one he had nearly been hit by. It had come from the direction of the moon, so Inle’ seemed the perfect name. He had also noticed that the metal seemed either enchanted, or possessed. The blade seemed to exhibit qualities that varied depending on Ansith’s emotional stress. For example, when he had fought the Shade, Seraph, a dark necromancer that had claimed his sword, the blade had burned Seraph when Ansith was nearby. It also had ripped through the barrier the Shade had created from the souls he had stolen with minimal effort. Whereas when he had fought the man in the arena earlier that day, it seemed a normal sword. It was still just as much of an enigma as when he first forged it.

He carried with him a second weapon, one that carried more sentimental value than one hundred million gold coins could ever even touch. It was a broadsword, three feet long, three and a half inches wide, and an inch thick. It was golden and silver, with a topaz resting in the center of the crossguard. The hilt was wrapped in a white leather, the pommel was a golden gilded symbol of the sun. It’s name was Frith.

It was a truly amazing blade, but Ansith couldn’t bring himself to remove the weapon from its scabbard. It brought back too many traumatic memories of its owner.

His brother.

His brother was the one who had taught him how to wield a blade, the one who had raised him, the one who had given him this sword in his final moments. His brother had done literally everything for him. But there is one thing he wished his brother had never done.

Give him a reason to want to kill.

Ansith felt a tear roll down his cheek as he thought about his sibling. He blinked the water out of his eyes and rubbed them with his forearm in disgust. He tied up the horse and walked back to his room. He lay there on the bed, thinking. He then lifted his hand, whispering to himself.

“ I swear, brother,” He made a fist.

“ I’ll rip Nera into a thousand pieces for what he did to you…”

The next day, Ansith mounted the scarred horse and began to ride, he had been riding for a few hours before he decided to rest.

“ Here should be fine.” He said as he dropped from the horse's back. He paced a few steps forward, then froze.

“ Come out, whoever’s there, come out and tell me what you’re doing.” Two men rose from the bushes. One was an older man, at his side was a longsword, four feet long, two inches wide, half an inch thick. The other man was a teenager with a claymore, seven feet long, one foot wide, three inches thick. The elder man addressed him.

“ Nera sent us. You’ve been a lot more trouble than you’re worth, kid.” He drew his sword, readying himself for combat.

“ Yeah, and there’s a nice bit of gold in it for us, too.” The young man said. He too drew his massive blade. Ansith regarded each of them for a moment, then grasped his rapier.

“ You guys sure about this?” He asked them.

“ Yes.” The old man responded. He lunged, aiming for Ansith’s heart. Ansith sidestepped the attack, lowering himself so that he was underneath his opponent, and ran him through with his blade, piercing the man’s heart and ending his life. Ansith stood, the swordsman’s limp body sliding off of Inle’, Blood dripping from the blade's tip.

“ Again, are you sure about this kid?” The kid slashed downward in response, it never made contact.

Ansith had blocked the blow, but not with the edge of Inle’, no, he had blocked it with the tip of the weapon. The teenager stammered in surprise.

“ H-how did you…” Before he could finish, Ansith slid his blade down the length of the kids weapon, he released contact with the blade, then rested his sword against his opponent's throat.

“ I’ve wielded this blade for a very long time, kid. You never stood a chance.” Then Ansith ripped through the teenager’s neck, blood spurted from the wound in bursts, the boy choked as his own blood flowed into his airway.

As the boy fell unconscious from his fatal injury, Ansith could feel Inle’s ever present beg for more blood shed grow. The blade had always seemed more human than weapon, the sword would pulse with hunger when he killed, as if it had some odd, sadistic personality of its own.

“ Still hungry, huh? He asked, looking down.

“ What the hell?” Inle’ was pulsing with a black, fervent energy. Ansith had never seen it do this before, and he was quite curious as to what the blade was sensing.

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