The torrential downpour lashed against the rooftop, rain-slick tiles skittering loose beneath the elf girl's feet. A bolt of lightning arched across the sky, the illuminated silhouette of Archon Guar's sinister tower burning into her retinas for a painful moment. Sanguinia Briarheart, third daughter of Matriarch Ilyena Briarheart, scraped heavily against the outer wall of the manor, casting fearful looks over her shoulder. Her ragged flight left bloody smears and handprints on the stonework, swiftly washed away in the continual torrent. Breathing heavily though gritted teeth, she limped to a halt at the edge of the sloping eaves and screamed her rage against the storm. Beneath her, a yawning, four-storey drop stretched to the cobblestone courtyard below. With blood pounding in her upswept ears, she ripped off her travel-pack and rifled desperately through in search of rope.
Above her, a carved wooden balustrade exploded outward in a cloud of spinning plasterboard. The tower balcony erupted with movement, as a svelte figure sprinted out of the damaged wall section. Her twin, Sanguinus, dashed across the slippery expanse with a wordless shout, his long cloak rippling in the roaring wind. Smoke poured out after him, the fire of their discarded torches beginning to spread within the manor. He slammed into the outer bulwark, his familial blade hanging limply in a wounded hand, but his keen eyes quickly picked her out on the rooftop below. As he bellowed her name, a mass of hunched, shuffling shapes emerged from the shattered wall behind him. She screamed a warning and he threw himself out of the path of a descending axe; the manor's relentless skeleton guardians had resumed their chase. Sanguinia watched as her brother parried aside a flurry of powerful blows, his arms quivering with the terrible impacts. In a fluid motion she drew, nocked and loosed from her longbow, her flight of arrows driving deep into rusting iron plate. Several of his pursuers staggered back for a moment, but their clanking advance could not be slowed. As her brother backed away, his sword outstretched, the skeletons lurched to their feet once more. She fired again, but the shaft sparked brightly aside from a heavy helmet.
With apparently suicidal surety, her brother leapt from the balcony and into the open air. For a moment he seemed to hang suspended in the storm, arms outstretched , his blood-red cloak billowing as if in flight. He described a graceful arc, rolling aside as a pitted spear swept past him in mid air. Then his outstretched fingers closed around one of the emerald green banners flapping in the wind, and with great momentum swung about to land skidding and rolling on the rooftop with her. Looking back, they could see the skeletons dumbly staring over the several-storey drop. After a short pause, it became aparent they would not try to duplicate his maneuver. The twins shared a conspirational look as he clambered to his feet, grinning broadly at his own daring. Sanguinus chuckled, his golden skin and eyes flashing with the lighting.
"See? I told you we'd get out alive," he quipped, rain streaming off his armor. Sanguinia finished tying the rope around one of the dragon gargoyles lining the roof as he loped towards her, sheathing his sword. She slung her bow, shook her head and tried to suppress a smile. "We should never have come to Vargoviste. Mother will have a fit if she finds out." Her brother put a hand on her shoulder and lifted her face by the chin. "Doubtless," he said softly. "But if she does, I will take the blame." Suddenly he laughed and pulled away. "After all, it was my cunning plan that secured us entry to a Gaur estate, and my skillful bladework that cut down the Archon's loathsome son. Perhaps she will even reward me."
"His fifth son," scoffed Sanguinia, hoisting her long hair into a tail, ready for the climb down. "It was supposed to be his heir in that carriage. And if you hadn't attacked anyway, we'd never have been captured." She scowled prettily. "It was arrogant and reckless."
Her brother rolled his eyes. "And waste all the effort we sent getting in? I'm trying to help you, onórë. The idea was yours, and it would have worked if not for that foul piece of luck with the horses. Don't you think our sisters will try to spin this as a failure to Mother? I say claim it!" Thunder rumbled to accentuate his point, and he gestured wildly into the wind. "An audacious counter-stroke against our old rival the Archon! How many victories against the Gaur have Aelli or Gelbraithe won lately? " He drew close to her again. "You would be a much better Matriarch than either of them nettë. If it comes to that."
A jarring, bone-splintering impact shook the rooftop, as a heavily-armored form smashed into the tiles. Sanguinia screamed, loosing her balance and toppling from her crouched position at the edge of the roof. Her full body weight jarred against her shoulder, as she caught a one-handed grip on the rope. She hung suspended, straining above the rainswept courtyard far below, blood and stormwater squeezed out between her fingers. Dimly, she was aware of more armoured figures slamming into the roof, skeletal guards raining down from the balcony overhead. Several were obliterated by the fall, but others pulled together grotesquely and shambled towards them on clicking, dislocated joints. Her brother was shouting at her, bellowing that she should go. His cloak swirled around him as he leapt to her defense, striking aside axe and sword blows meant to sever her silken rope. He shouldered aside one skeleton, struck it with the pommel of his sword and kicked it off the ledge. It sailed over her head, struggled and kicked in mid-air, then blew apart on the hard stones below. Torturously, Sanguinia tried to haul herself back onto the rooftop. Over the edge, she caught glimpses of the combat, as her brother's swordblade battered uselessly against unliving bone and armour. He was being forced back, even as she hauled one elbow over the verge. He parried aside a mace-strike, ducked an axe-blow, barely avoided a sword-strike, and suffered a glancing blow from a viperous spear-thrust. He was puffing hard, rainwater plastering his long black hair to his face, …
UNFINISHED - Wikidot glitched when I tried to save. Summary:
- Sanguinia forced to drop her bow
- Falls last few meters, sees Sanguinus thrown from rooftop.
- Sanguinus splatters all over her, she takes insanity points and draws his sword
- Asrai and his wild elves rescue her, she screams in rage at the burning tower
- Cut to elder sister Aelli brushing off Uncle Ylrad Briarheart, who wants to speak to Matriarch
- Matriarch (Mother) is in mourning over Sanguina.
- Ylrad tells Aelli that Sanguinia is nearly suicidal with rage, already
recruiting mercenary riff-raff to aid her in her unknown revenge plans
- Aelli is pleased at prospect of losing a rival, Ylrad is horrified.
- Ylrad enlists Asrai to protect Sanguinia.
