Brimstone and Steel Prologue
#1 of Brimstone and Steel
Kathal groaned as he woke up, glancing around at his grim surroundi...
Kathal groaned as he woke up, glancing around at his grim surroundings silently. He was chained to the wall of a stone cell, five by five feet, with no windows and a single block of metal seeming to serve as the door. Kathal was a Dalynther, and considered by many of the females to be an attractive one as well. He was tall, almost eight feet in height, muscular, with gleaming blue scales, blue-green eyes, a bone-white stomach and hair, and onyx-black horns growing from the side of his head, turned backwards. He was naked, exposed completely to the chilly air in his stone room.
How did I get here?
He didn't remember much, just that night and the following morning at the Blazing Dragon. That one, wondrous night and the horrible, harrowing morning that he had awoken to.
He sat silently in a booth in the corner of the bar, nursing a tankard of ale.
_ "I never took you as the drinking type, Kathal", a silky female voice informed him._
_ "...Uh, hello. And no, I don't drink that much. Only when I'm worried."_
_ "Hmm. What worries?"_
_ "I... Can't say. It's too dangerous. Not safe."_
_ "Well, regardless, maybe I can help you alleviate some of those worries, hmm?" She asked him with a sly grin, watching him. She certainly was attractive - gray scales, beautiful green eyes, black hair and belly... Beautiful._
_ "It would be an_ honour, Lathia."
_ "Well then come on, I already have a room..."_
_ With that, they had taken off, arm in arm, towards Lathia's room._
_* * * _
_ When he woke the next morning, he found, to his disappointment, that his beautiful female companion was gone. Still, she had probably just gone to get some drinks. It had been a long and wild night, after all. He grinned and put his clothing and_ armour on - a vest, a knee-length loincloth (which he truly needed to keep himself decent!), pauldrons, greaves, and his bracers. He flexed his muscles a bit as he stood up.
_ And then he_ realised there was no noise at all. Nothing. Not the groans of those waking up from hangovers in the taproom, nor the gentle whispers of lovers in the rooms next to his and Lathia's. It was unnatural, eerie.
_ He pushed open the door, barging out into the main room, to find a scene of horror._
_ Dead bodies of his fellow Dalynther lay everywhere. There was Othar, the old warrior-master turned barkeep, slumped against the bar counter; his tough scales torn open as though they were thin leaves. Rael, the blacksmith, lay on the floor as though asleep, the only clue to his death being the vast cut on his throat, and the pool of blood surrounding him. Aran, the garrulous bronze-scaled merchant, lay dead in a bowl of stew, his body nearly split in half at the waist by some monstrous blade. Decapitations, disembowelments, impalements, dismemberments and other mutilations were all present, all wrought on those whom he had called friends. But these and other corpses were nearly ignored by Kathal as he saw the worst sight in his short life._
_ Hung from the rafters by chains, decapitated, was the gray-scaled body of Lathia; her arms opened wide, invitingly, various horrible mutilations visited upon her body. But the worst part was her head, lying on the floor at her feet - her tongue and her beautiful, playful green eyes had been removed with the precision of a surgeon. The empty sockets of her eyes stared balefully at him, accusing him of her death._
_ Kathal fell to his knees, his sanity bending and stretching as these deaths weighed on his conscience. Why? Why not him? Why his friends? Why were they dead yet he was alive? These thoughts whirled around in his head, as he slumped to the floor, leaving himself open to the welcome oblivion of unconsciousness._
* * *
Kathal woke with a jolt, arms and legs flailing uselessly as they strained against the bonds that held him. The chains were starting to hurt. It was cold in here. And then he realized with fear that he wasn't alone.
Standing in front of the door was a vast monster, in the shape of a human, armoured in spiked full plate, segmented like an insect's shell. It had spikes all over- on the large helm, on the pauldrons, knee guards, elbow guards, gauntlets, greaves, bracers - everything. It also had a high gorget, obscuring the bottom half of the warrior's horned helmet. On one arm he bore a vast shield, fully seven feet in height, and on it was emblazoned a single symbol - a shattered world, broken in half by a lightning-bolt crack. In the other hand he held a heavy, mighty black cleaver of a blade. The blade that had nearly severed poor Aran's body in half. The blade that was soaked in the blood of thousands of innocents.
The blade of the Shatterknight.
"We have much to discuss, you and I..." The unholy voice seemed to issue from the Shatterknight's helm, but he could not be sure.
"I-I will never r-reveal my secrets t-to you!"
A low chuckle flitted around the room. "You act like you have a choice, slave. Now come, it will be a very long day for you..."
Kathal screamed in pain as the Shatterknight's hateful consciousness wormed its way into his mind.