Who is this cloaked beast? (Thorns of Steel TP)

Somewhere deep with the woods of Mossflower...

The day is partly cloudy, and the air is mild, almost chilly, and a wind ruffles the trees. The vermin are sitting in a tight circle, having spent a sleepless night in the cold rainy outside with no fire or shelter. The leader of the gang, a lean, muscular weasel, stands and looks nervously around. He draws his chipped, rusted cutless and says, "Come on. Let's get a move on." The remainder of his gang, a scruffy mixture of various vermin species, both male and female, give no arguement. They all want to put as much distance between the terror they fought last night and themselves.

"Unfortunately, it's far too late for that," comes a flat voice from behind the area they're gathered in. A soft ring of steel accompanies this.

The vermin give a collected gasp, and a certain vixen screeches, "It's the Halfrat! Run!" She takes the lead, and a good third of the others, including the head weasel chap, follow her. The others are rooted to the spot, icy fear coursing through their veins like molten snow.

"There is no running from the Black Sword." A figure steps out of the trees, a pitchblack blade held down and away from its wielder. In two swift paces, the beast is upon the unmoving remnants of the gang. Several deft strokes, and they fall slain on the spot, cut down without mercy.

The remaining vermin daren't look back as the screams of their dieing comrades echo through the autumn-coloured trees. The weasel chief gasps out a prayer. "Mars...protect me...." his fellow runaways are murmering similar things.

Their pursuer doesn't seem to modify his unhurried, casual pace at all...yet again he is upon them. The rearmost of the bandits begin to fall. "You thought you could escape the Half-Rat? After sacking /my/ region? None can save you now...you earned this fate."

The first bandit the cloaked beast kills manages to gasp out, "Nemisis, avenge my murder..." but is quickly cut off. The weasel and the vixen put on a burst of speed, leaving their fellows eating leaf litter. But they are slowly tiring.

"Murder?" The wielder of the black sword raises one eyebrow. "You scum...How dare you speak of murder? /Any/ of you? Murder...you burned villages, razed fields, killed the sick, the old, the infirm, the young, the weak, the strong...Aye, this is murder right enough. But when you think of your numerous evils...A handful of foul, wasted, worthless lives are a small price to pay, and indeed the only recompense that can be exacted...And when you think of it that way, no. It's not murder..." He catches up with the next of them, draws his sword back, and as he slashes, he roars, "/IT'S JUSTICE!/"

The creatures the cloaked one are killing scream in agony and terror as they are felled. The weasel, the vixen, and 3 ferrets are the only beasts from their party remaining. 1 of the ferrets climbs a sycamore and tries to reason with the avenging figure below. "Oi, now 'old on there. I ain't never killed nobeast, I swear on me mammy's grave, I do." His comrades zip farther away, trying to put as much distance between them and the cloaked one.

The beast pauses, as if actually considering the plea. "I highly doubt it." With uncanny skill, he hurls his sword, which buries itself to the hilt in the ferret's chest. As the bandit falls from the tree, screaming, gurgling, and coughing up blood, the cloaked beast watches impassively, and as the ferret breathes his last, he plants a footpaw on the corpse and pulls his blade free. "Run, cowards," he calls to the fleeing vermin. "The Half-Rat will get you." And he will. As he moves through the trees, the sunlight plays along the black metal of the sword blade, causing the word /Nevermore/ to flash in the light near the base of the blade.

The remaining vermin flee for their dear lives, not ever looking back, not even once.