The Grim Legion

by Kindred Ult

  "I heard that these shackles keep you from Turning. So unless you want your pretty Queen's blood on your hands, turn back to humans and let us capture you." He almost had no idea what he was saying, but it sounded right.

  For a moment they hesitated, but then, one by one, they morphed back and allowed Leon and Raphael to lock the rest of the shackles onto them. Most of them were only fifth class, with only one first class, but Demenn figured that it was better for them to be captured than not.

  "Now we're headed out of here." They lead their captives out of the jail and into the street, where Demenn found out just where all of the werewolves who had escaped had been. All around them, werewolves were loping and sprinting towards them. Demenn and the others quickly moved to the middle of the street, so that they were away from objects that could be used to ambush them. The werewolves ran towards them, but each of them stopped when it saw the captive that Demenn was holding. They unconsciously formed a circle around the vampires with a distance of about thirty feet between them. Demenn could tell that they were waiting for something. It was obvious that none of them wanted to let the vampires go, but they also did not want the Queen's blood on their hands. They milled about restlessly in their indecision.

  Demenn was pleased to know that they would not harm him and the others, but he also did not want to jeopardize what has going on. He had no idea how to deal with these things.

  Even as he was wondering how to get out of his position, though, a split began to be formed on one side of them. When the split reached them, Demenn saw a gray werewolf walk out from among the others and stand fifteen feet away from him. It looked very old, with its gray fur patchy in some places and countless scars across its body. Even with its obvious age, though, Demenn could tell that it was a first class werewolf, and the fact that it chose to use its normal form disturbed him. When it spoke, its voice seemed to belay its age.

  "Hail vampire," he called out with a voice full of life and vigor. "I am Scar, werewolf first class, survivor of the Werepyre wars, general of the werewolf army, and fifth werewolf to be created. Surrender now, only death awaits you if you continue on this path of folly. If you give up now, I will assure you that you will be allowed to live." He tried to take a step forward, but Demenn brought his knife to the Queen's neck, cutting it just enough for blood to begin to flow down.

  "I'm Demenn, first class, a rather new vampire. I am the leader of a squad that was originally seven. No way in hell. Only death awaits your Queen if you keep moving forward." He looked around, trying to figure out the mood of the crowd and also where he was. "And that goes for the rest of you as well. I would like free passage out of here for my men and I. I am afraid that if any of us die, I will drink the blood from her open throat."

  Scar looked undecided. It was obvious that he was fighting with himself inside. Then, however, the queen herself spoke for the first time. "Give them what they want, Scar." Her voice did not tremble or break, in fact, she sounded like she was ordering something from a store, as if nothing were wrong.

  Scar's eyes widened. "But your majesty!"

  She cut him off. "I have complete faith in you, Ghost, and my husband. The three of you will find a way to bring me back, I know that you will."

  Scar looked at her, the helplessness in his eyes evident. He had no response to give her, however, so he directed his gaze back to Demenn. "Please do not do this, Demenn. Your actions could lead to more bloodshed than you could possibly imagine. Please, for the sake of your life, our lives, and the lives of your people, please release her."

  Demenn chuckled. "What is the life of a scum like me worth anyway? For that matter, what are the lives of all of my race worth? Death is what we were made for, Scar, and death is what we must do. Both of our races are no nothing more than death and killing, and we are both evil. What loss is all of our deaths? Now promise us safe passage."

  He could see sorrow in Scar's eyes. "Very well, young one, but I hope that one day you will see that there is more to even our existence than extinction." He turned to all of the werewolves around him. "Do as your Queen commands, let them pass."

  None of the werewolves enjoyed the order, but every one of them stopped their restless jostling, and one end, the one that Scar had come from, opened up again. The crowd parted as Scar beckoned to Demenn.

  "The exit is that way."

  Demenn motioned for him to join the circle, and when he did the vampires and their captives began to move towards the split in the crowd at an agonizingly slow pace. To Demenn, it seemed like every werewolf that ever existed was gathered around them, and the prospect of walking through all of them was more than a little daunting. As they walked though the gap being made for them, Demenn looked around and saw nothing but hate in the eyes of all those around him. He knew that, if they wanted to, they could easily rush him and the others and rip them apart. He also knew that they would not attempt it, however, because he would kill their queen seconds before they ripped him apart.

  It was a disturbing feeling, being on the knife's edge between life and death with only the debatable self-control of thousands of werewolves keeping him alive. Somewhere in him, though, he almost wished they would rush him. He wanted to be able to slit her throat and then die, or maybe he just wanted to die. He could not tell at the moment. He was caught between his disgust for himself and his rage at the world, and all he could do was inch forward with his hostage held in front of him like a shield. She had called him scum, and she had been right. He was scum. They were all scum.

  He came to a crossroads of streets, and since he had no idea which one to take, he looked around for someone to ask.

  "Go right." The Queen said softly, before he could find a suitable candidate. "The exit is straight in front of you if you just keep walking."

  Demenn had no idea what to say, so he just nodded his head and chose the right path. They all walked along that road, with even more werewolves on each side of them, until they reached the large doors that signaled the end of the lair. At the Queen's behest, the werewolves guarding the door opened it for them, and then, at Demenn's command, they closed them after they had passed through.

  When the sliver of light from the torches inside the door finally became darkness, Demenn and the others were presented with an immediate split in the caverns. Both paths split into other paths, and those curved right as they started. Demenn paused as he surveyed the two paths for a moment. Both looked completely identical, and he was at a loss as to which to take. He turned to the Queen, who was looking at him contemptuously.

  "Which way leads out of here?" He had put his knife away, but he still held her by the chain between her wrists. She stared at him, then blinked.

  "Left."

  He was about to lead her left when he stopped, looked around, and motioned to Raphael and Leon. "Send the handmaidens first." They smiled, walked in front of him with their charges, and pushed them forward. The four women tentatively started to walk forward, but they moved slower the farther along they went. Eventually Demenn sighed and waved at Raphael, who pulled his swords from his sheaths and walked forward menacingly. He grinned and began spinning his sword at his wrists. He spun them around him, moving his arms around his body as he walked towards the handmaidens and they huddled together. They had stopped moving now, and were watching Raphael walk towards them with his swords waving in the air in front of him. The tension was almost malleable, and it continued to build as he got closer to them until eventually one broke down and yelled out.

  "Stop! This isn't the right way. There's a trap. It's the other way. Please let us go!" She was crying, and her eyes were wide with fear.

  Raphael stopped and looked back at Demenn, who nodded. He quickly sheathed his swords and walked up to them before guiding them back. Demenn looked at the queen, who stared back at him defiantly.

  "Do it." His face was impassive.

  Both Leon and Raphael grinned this time, as they whipped out their weapons and Raphael stabbed his two blades through
the back of one of the handmaidens, who had not spoken, a second before Leon separated her head from her body. Her head sailed through the air and hit the wall with a thud before rolling back and staring at her body, which was spraying blood all over the other handmaidens until Raphael ripped his swords out of it and it fell to the ground, blood pooling in front of it. One of the handmaidens screamed, and the three left alive huddled even closer to each other, looking at their captors in horror. Demenn looked back at the Queen, who looked visibly shaken, but not excessively or even adequately so. Her face was placid even when Leon and Raphael dug their claws into the handmaiden's chest and took her heart before dividing it between the two of them.

  She spoke first. "You…You…"

  "Scum?" Demenn finished for her with a shadow of a smile. "This is what will happen every time you give us false directions out of here. We will continue to kill them, and if in the end we run out of them we will send you down the caverns and will begin to take your fingers if the way is false, is this understood?"

  "Yes." Her voice was unnaturally calm.

  Only one handmaiden was left by the time they reached the throat of the giant wolf they inhabited. The handmaiden left was caked in the blood of her comrades and trembling. Once again, Demenn stopped the group before the reached it's mouth. The Queen was still being led by the shackles, but now she walked beside him, as if she were finally resigned to her fate. When they stopped, she did not wait for him to ask, but addressed Stone Wolf.

  "Stone Wolf, these three vampires have my permission to leave this compound." As she said the words, her head drooped slightly.

  A low chuckle reverberated from somewhere Demenn did not care to guess. The dead end in front of them slowly opened to reveal the outside world. It was not until Demenn saw the moon-encased trees and ground that he realized just how mush he had missed them in his time inside the caverns. He felt free as he led the Queen out of Stone Wolf's mouth, down its tongue, and onto the ground.

  Once they cleared its mouth, Stone Wolf let out a barking laugh. "Ah, finally, the vampires actually do something. Capturing the Queen, now that's a laugh. I congratulate you, Demenn, first class; Leon, second class; and Raphael, second class. May your journey back to your land be a safe one and be devoid of your inevitable deaths." He looked back at the two vampires and chuckled. "You look ravishing in that form, Victoria, as do you, Sarah."

  Demenn smiled for the first time in his recent memory. "Our thanks, Stone Wolf. May you eventually break free of your bonds. I hope that I am not around when that happens, though."

  He could hear it laughing as the three of them began sprinting into the forest towards vampire territory. He carried the Queen on his back, and Leon and Raphael both carried the last handmaiden between them. The three of them ran with equal speed with his burden being double theirs. They ran as fast as they could, trying to get as far away from that place as they could. Even as they ran, though, they failed to see the dark shape that flew against the night sky. It changed its direction from heading to the werewolf lair to following them, and they were oblivious.

  - 13 -

  The Lich King

  Been awhile since I said anything on here, let's see… Awhile back I said that I thought Niethel's theme song would have to be The Worm and the Bird by The Used, and I liked the way it sounded when I read stuff with him in it. That got me thinking about other characters, and I think that Sophella's would have to be Sweet Sacrifice by Evanescence. The tone of the song really fits her. Also, I think that Lidian's would have to be either Fully Alive or All Around Me, each of them are by Flyleaf. I've got others kinda' figured out, but I'll wait until they actually appear in chapters before I give those out.

  15

  The Lich KingHad it not been for the rest he had received the day before at another vampire way stop, Niethel was sure that he would have collapsed by now. That possibility was not far off as it was, and he was breathing erratically while the world in front of him blurred and shifted. He still ran on, though, doggedly determined to never quit before the woman who ran in front of him did. And, of course, she continued to run full-tilt through all of the miles without breaking her perfect form or stopping to catch her breath. That damned spell of hers.

  Despite his heroic stoicism, Niethel was just about to ask for a quick rest when Sophella abruptly stopped moving. They were in front of two trees that stood like sentinels on the sides of what Niethel could just barely make out to be a path. A tall mountain, presumably one of those that bordered Darkoven, shot into the sky not fifty feet away from them. The fact that this mountain was even there made Niethel wonder just how far they had run. He knew that they had been running for what seemed like forever, but this mountain seemed to indicate that they had crossed almost all of Darkoven while running. The thought gave just a bit of his shattered self-esteem back to him.

  He staggered to a stop and placed his hands on his knees while panting. He did not feel like talking, and Sophella did not appear to want to give him any information either, so he stood silently save for his pants and groans. When he was finally able to do anything, he looked up to see Sophella weaving her hands in front of her with the two longest fingers of each pointed out. Trails of light briefly followed her fingers as she shot them back and forth in intricate patterns. Once she was apparently done, she stepped back and began to address what seemed to him to be the thin air.

  "Necromancers, see that I stand at the border of your lands. I am a friend and a former companion. I ask for entrance to your lands and an audience with your current leader. If either I or my companion do any harm to you, then may our bones be unearthed and serve you forever in immortal silence as punishment for our crimes."

  When she had finished, the two of them stood without speaking for tense seconds as nothing happened. Despite his resolve to not interrupt her, Niethel was feeling very uncomfortable just standing there. He was about to say something when two figures stepped out from behind the trees in front of them and approached them. The two of them looked completely identical, with dark black robes covering their entire bodies and most of their faces too. Each of them was also followed by a skeletal being, but unlike their owners, these were far from identical.

  The skeleton on the left appeared to be vaguely humanoid in shape, but the inside of its skeletal chest was filled with bones that constantly shifted and it had a third arm that was somehow grafted onto one of it's ribs on its right side. It held a sword in one right arm and a large ax in the other two arms. The skeleton on the right was at first easily recognizable as a werewolf, but upon closer inspection it's fingers had been broken to the wrist and had been individually lengthened. Each of the fingers was as long as its forearm. Its jaw had been torn off and grafted back on several feet lower and this made room for its teeth, which looked like they were made from sharpened arm bones, and for the strange mandibles that constantly slid across the beast's maw.

  The necromancer with the werewolf behind him threw back his hood and stepped forward. Niethel was relieved to see a smile on his surprisingly human face. The necromancer stopped a few feet away from them and faced Sophella.

  "Welcome home, lost one. I don't suppose that you are here because you wish to renounce your vampirism and retake your rightful place among us."

  Sophella returned his smile and walked up to him, clasping his arm in hers with a friendly handshake. "I may just at that, Darren, but for now all I ask is to talk with your current leader, as I said."

  The other did not reveal her face as she addressed them from behind her cloak. "Very well, Darren, please escort them to their desired location."

  Darren nodded and beckoned them to follow him. They walked further along the path, but just as they started, and Darren's werewolf came along behind them, Niethel could have sworn that he saw the other necromancer simply disappear along with her skeleton. He wanted to slow and look back, but Darren and Sophella were already walking strenuously before him, and the werewolf following close—too close, if anyone
were to ask him—behind him was subtly urging him onward. He sighed as another of life's mysteries passed him by and he was forced to start moving again. He was happy to be only walking, but at this point any movement was taxing for him.

  'Great, just what I need, more freakin' running.' He knew that they were only walking swiftly, but the over-exaggeration almost made him feel better.

  Thankfully, they did not have far to go. After a short while, Darren turned from the trail onto a smaller trail that led into the side of a cliff on the mountain, which Niethel just now noticed was very close to them. They must have been heading directly towards it. He wondered what Darren was doing, since he could tell that the trail ended against the sheer cliff in only about ten feet, but he was in no mood to question the master of the beast that still stalked quietly behind him.