"Darkness at night, darkness at day"

[Jaol Kinn [Sparrowhawk]]

Sparrowhawk, otherwise known as the infamous Jaol Kinn, the warrior priest, trudged valiantly onwards through the trees. He knew not what he was facing, save that it was evil and was spreading evil - and that was all he needed as an incentive to continue his lonely march onwards to what was called the Black Fortress. Behind him his pack horse pranced about, jumping and dancing away from either side of the road they were walking on whilst pushing close against the blind man.

"Calm, dear Red." the man murmured, reaching his free hand back over his shoulder. The horse thrust its nose into the man's fingers. "We must be strong and fearless in the face of darkness." For Sparrow, that meant all of the time. He hadn't yet met one person who was wholly white, their aurora [?] spreading out far enough to block his view of the blankness of his disability. He called it a gift where most would call it a curse. Most, however, didn't know that he could now see into their very soul.

[Dreamwalker]

Beleth sighed from where she walked beside the man. "Your serious about this Gramps? I mean your blind, shouldn't you be letting your grandkids take care of you, not travelling the world on a quest to fight evil." She said grumpily, more mad at herself. When she met the man she'd been concerned since he was blind, when he told her his goal she had been shocked and her concious wouldn't let her just let the man walk straight to his doom. So she came along with him to make sure he didn't end up walking into a pit and die but so far he hadn't needed her help.

[Jaol Kinn [Sparrowhawk]]

"I've told you before. I'm not that old. And I don't have any.. 'grandkids'." Sparrow grumbled, tossing her a 'look' as if to make his point clearer. His horse gave her a snort too. The two, warrior and steed, seemed to have a silent agreement that one would always back up the other in any situation. Most of the time, however, it was the horse that was running to catch up with Sparrow and looking to the man for courage.

"And besides. Who's going to fight the black-hearted if I don't? I know Red won't. Will you?" he hardly paused to let her answer, "You're on a quest to find someone, not fight the evil." He stopped walking, the horse almost knocking into him, as he seemed to think about his words. "I suppose I'm looking for something too, but it's more of a state of mind than--" A nasty-looking barbed arrow whistled past the man's head, missing by a hair's-breadth. At once his axe was out, the man tossing it up into the air once. As it fell back to his hand it began to hum quietly. It may have looked like a woodcutter's axe, but to his hands the blade of it sang, ready to chop cleanly through flesh with its song.

Red, the cowardly horse, reared up and turned to flee, but instead pranced about in the background, attempting to be a help by storming in, but always stopping and turning back around to retreat. It was as if he couldn't decide whether to stay loyal of bolt away home to save his own skin. Sparrow, on the other hand, stood his ground bravely with his axe humming quietly at his side.

[Dreamwalker]

Beleth let out her wings and drew her swords then waited. She wasn't going to go and intentionally attack, she didn't like fighting pointlessly. So instead she stood by Sparrow ready to help him out how she could, opinion that he was crazy further affirmed by the fact he was humming to himself in the middle of a situation.

((Sorry it's short!))

[Jaol Kinn [Sparrowhawk]]

There was movement from the line of bushes ahead, Sparrow sharply lifting his head towards it before lobbing the humming axe in its direction. The axe turned from humming to singing as it flew through the air towards its foe, the pitch of its tune getting higher the faster it went until it went strangely quiet. The blade sliced through the leaves and went straight through, apparently missing although it did throw a lot of branches and leaves out of its path. Clang! The axe's tune became audible once again, but it was off key and getting steadily quieter.

The dark creature rose from its hiding spot, laughing away. Its life had been saved by its thick armour plating - although there was a considerable dent in his arm where it had apparently been hit. The human-like being then lifted its bow and drew back the bowstring, a barbed arrow knocked and ready to sink itself into the nearest pound of flesh.

Red gave a shrill neigh at the sight of it and took this as a signal to run, the animal spinning around and disappearing between the trees. The old warrior priest stood still and calm almost in the same position he had been in when he had released the axe. It seemed like he was waiting for something, but he had also lifted a small blacksmith's hammer from his belt so it could be said he wasn't entirely confident on the thing he was waiting for.

[Dreamwalker]

Beleth dashed away as well, though up instead of following Red. She then landed behind the attacker and her sword went into it's chest. The thing about armor is that there had to be a gap at the arm pit or you couldn't move, and with it's arm up to shoot it left a opening. Beleth stabbed the vile thing and then backed away prepared for a counter strike if it survive, and if it had the body system as a human it wouldn't, from the arm pit it was quite easy to reach the heart.

[Jaol Kinn [Sparrowhawk]]

The creature snarled at her, the arrow flying free as the blow hit, Beleth surprising the being it seemed. It turned to hit her with the bow, but then it seemed to falter and its body began to fall. A high pitch whine then became apparent a second before Sparrow's axe met the creature's skull with a dull whud. The sound died down as abruptly as it had came, the sound of the creature hitting the ground effectively cutting it off.

Meanwhile, Sparrow lay sprawled across the floor grasping his leg and silently writhing about in what appeared to be pain. Well, it probably was pain as there was an arrow stuck in his thigh. The poor man didn't really stand a chance when it came to dodging arrows as they had no soul so he couldn't see them, plus this one was very quick being short-ranged and thus hearing it was too late for him to dive for cover. A hand firmly held onto the arrow shaft whilst the other clutched at his thigh about the wound. The arrow had very almost gone straight through his leg, the tip of the barbed point only just breaking the skin on the other side. It certainly did look painful.

There was also the added complication that, as the arrow came from a "corrupted" and evil creature it would most likely be either poisoned or be cursed. Now that one mentions it, the skin about the wound was beginning to turn dark, but it was hard to tell in the dim light of the forest.

[Dreamwalker]

Beleth leapt over the corpse and went to Sparrow worried. "This doesn't look good Gramps, and I certainly can't do anything about it beyond wrapping it up and hope it doesn't get infected." She said crouching down to look at his leg. She stood up looking at the creature. "But at least you managed to prove you can fight, possibly at the cost of your leg but you proved it. You want me to pull the arrow out first or go get the horse?" She asked him, pretty sure she'd seen first aid stuff in one of the saddle bags on Red.

[Jaol Kinn [Sparrowhawk]]

"I-I-- ah --told you." Sparrow began, his teeth clenched as he managed a little grin, "I'm not.. that.. old.. Hah.. Pull it out." The man struggled to keep still as he lifted a hand and unwound the silk from about his eyes. "U-use this f-f-for now." He held it out to her, the blindfold actually quite lengthy. His eyes stared blankly ahead, not seeing, but occasionally whenever they were directed at her the dull iris lit up with colour. Eventually he squeezed his eyes shut.

Meanwhile Red was still panicking, realising that he didn't like being in this forest alone. All sorts of noises were about him, his ears were constantly in motion as were his feet and tail. The horse had worked itself into a sweat, its red-brown coat matted and damp. He gave a neigh as he turned tail and bolted again in dire hope that he was going to right way to find them. It was said that horses have great directional skills, the animals supposedly in tune with the magnetism of th world, although this forest seemed to change constantly and the blind fear interupted the horses sense.

[Dreamwalker]

Beleth took the silk and turned toward the wound. "Well at the least sit down first, no way I can pull it out with you standing on it." She then muttered to herself. "At least not without causing even more harm." She heard a neigh and whistled sharply, the battle had announced them well enough so no reason to be quiet, and silk was horrible for binding wounds, too smooth and slippery, so she wanted to get real bandages soon.

[Jaol Kinn [Sparrowhawk]]

Sparrow didn't have much choice in the matter of sitting down for, just as she told him to sit, he lost his balance. A disturbingly accurate hand (or surprisingly lucky) grabbed onto her shoulder as he fell, his other arm whirling around like a windmill. He almost pulled her down with him as his body twisted about and landed heavily on the floor, his grip having slipped from her shoulder down her arm and to her wrist.

To Sparrow everything happened in slow motion right from the uncertainty of his balance to the impact of the fall.

"Oof." he proclaimed as he hit the soft earth, "Aaah-ah!" the movement had jarred the arrow in his leg.

Red replied to her whistle with another neigh, the sound drawing nearer as opposed to getting fainter. Within a second or two the animal's bare hooves could be heard churning up the earth and hitting twigs and stones. Then came the animal's heavy breathing and snorting as well as a few high squeals followed by a brief change of the beat of its hooves. The horse came careering into the clearing bucking like a bronco and with an almost crazed look in its eyes. A white lather was working up on his shoulders and neck.

The horse kicked out at thin air as it stopped, throwing itself about as if something was on it. Which indeed there was. For, as the horse turned to throw its head and front feet into the air a wolf-like creature was hanging off its shoulder. The animal was a little too small to be a wolf, but looked large enough to still bring down an animal of Red's size. Soon enough, however, Red had won the fight to stay alive, throwing off the predator which retreated quickly with no more that a few scratches and ruffled fur on Red. The horse continued to throw its head about for a while, though not as fiercely, before stopping and giving a loud snort.