The Dark Edge Chronicles - Clan War

Chapter 36: Those Who Live by the Sword

"It's a coward's strike anyway," Lash growled between grit teeth. "A scratch and you die, regardless of your skill, honor, or deeds in battle." And found his teeth grinding even more when Romanescu mockingly laughed.

"You, of all people, should know, Lord Commander. You never engage in battle where you don't have an overwhelming advantage!" The smirk grew. "After all of the one-sided battles I've been in over my life, I'll take the one where I have the advantage every time!"

Lash pondered letting his rage pour out in a venomous storm. It would be justified, killing every enemy in this chamber for killing so many innocent Ventru in the name of their false purge. The blood of his clan cried out for vengeance and only the blood of his enemies spilt onto the floor to cool without honor could satisfy it.

But, to dash recklessly forward would also be playing into the traitor's hands. And there was little doubt Romanescu was couching his words in a way that were intended to bait him into doing just that: attacking recklessly. Where a single scratch would win the fight for the traitorous Nosferatu vampire.

No. Lash schooled his features to blankness even as he pushed the anger into the back of his mind, banking it and letting it smolder and wait for a better time to be deployed. No, he wasn't going to play Romanescu's game by letting himself be drawn into attacking foolishly.

He was going to play his own game!

Eyes narrowed, Lash regarded Romanescu for a long moment. Then, with a slight shrug, he stepped back. Where he, whistling tunelessly under his breath, lightly twirled the car'deith dagger in his hand as if he didn't care what was going on.

Which, as expected, immediately elicited a frown from the slaver.

"What ... are you doing?" Romanescu hesitantly asked, obviously confused by the sudden change in aspect and posture.

Lash ignored him, choosing to continue to whistle tunelessly as with flawless dexterity, he let the dagger dance through his fingers, the twirling bringing the radioactive blade close enough to his fingers to make them tingle in reaction. Ignoring that as well, he continued to twirl the dagger as a stunned Romanescu stared at him.

"Are you ... are you trying to cut yourself, Lash?" the Nosferatu traitor then asked, so genuinely uncertain about what was going on that he stood still and stared. And when Lash continued to ignore him and twirl the dagger without making an aggressive move, Romanescu's confusion only grew.

"I thought you wanted this over," the slaver finally said after a long moment of knife twirling. "Weeks of cutting your way through our forces on the continent to finally face the traitor on the council. And you stand there, twirling your knife like some sort of circus act, as if you don't care. Don't you want justice for your fallen, Lash? For the liliths that I've captured, enslaved, and sold to anybody that would buy them, including psionics??"

Instead of answering, or ignoring the confused slaver, Lash finally looked up and over at him and smiled. Then he returned to his knife twirling.

"This is insanity," Romanescu muttered under his breath as he shifted his feet with uncertainty. Obviously unwilling to make the first move with the knowledge that it'd make him vulnerable to counterattack, he could only watch helplessly as Lash, seemingly without a care in the face of finally dealing with one of his primary enemies during the pogrom and subsequent clan war that threatened Ventru's very existence.

Almost as if ...

A quick twitch away from Romanescu as if he meant to turn towards Demaskieros and continue his knife twirling, then Lash was lunging in with every bit of the speed and strength he possessed as a trained Qos Viran operator. And in doing so, caught Romanescu completely unprepared. The traitor didn't even flinch in an attempt to defend himself before Lash was burying his dagger to the hilt in the Nosferatu vampire's heart and stepping back to avoid a wild slash by Romanescu in response to the devastating attack.