The Grim Legion

by Kindred Ult

  "Quick, this way," she gasped while leading him down the left path. The way quickly turned right once, and then ended abruptly. Niethel groaned and spun around, whipping out his bow in the process. His hand shot to his quiver, and for a moment it rested upon his prized possession, an arrow with a tip made from Wolfsbane. In a split-second decision, however, he passed over that arrow and wrapped his fingers around two arrows. He pulled them out and flexed his fingers to their greatest extend to keep the two of them facing straight as he aimed them down his bow. Just as he sighted down it, the first werewolf turned the corner, and he released the two arrows before shooting his hand back and grabbing another.

  As he had guessed, the werewolf had one arm in front of its heart, and so one of his arrows stuck into its forearm. It began to laugh, but just then the second arrow buried itself into its left eye, and it bucked back in surprise. For just a moment, it lifted its arm , and Niethel was right there with his eye sighted down the shaft of his Wolfsbane arrow. He let it fly, and it turned over in the air once before passing through the werewolf's ribs and piercing its heart. The werewolf had time to growl as it felt the poison of the mettle course through its blood system, and then it fell to the ground.

  Even as it died, however, the second one was leaping past it, and Niethel had no other arrows that could do anything save pain the beast. His basic instincts told him to run, as any prey with any sense would from a predator. Being charged by a being that was made to kill him was completely different than anything he had ever encountered. Always before he had a sense of superiority, or at least had the idea that, as long as he stayed alive for long enough he would be saved. Now, however, there was no chance of that, or of him actually defeating the beast that was attacking him at that moment. His only chance to live was to run; to run, and to hide. To survive.

  He almost did run, but then he felt the presence of Sophella behind him, and he knew that he could not. An instinct greater even than self preservation ran through him, and he drew his sword and dirk. 'I'm not Demenn, but I'm not prey either.' He thought.

  With a yell, Niethel leapt into the air at the first class. It was obviously surprised by his counter attack, and as such he was able to slash down with both of his weapons across its chest. He landed right in front of it and spun to the side, slashing a line on the front of its leg and coming around to bury his dirk into the side of its stomach. He saw stomach and intestinal juices flow from the wound, but the dirk in its side only served to distract the beast, and when it turned around it was angry. Niethel frantically dodged attacks that could have split him in half, but he knew that he woulds not be able to last very long.

  Still, he knew that he could not let up. He had to keep on attacking and dodging, because the moment he stopped he would be dead, and moments after that he knew Sophella would be dead as well. Just when he began to think of her, however, he saw white begin to flow from behind the werewolf, and knew that she must be doing something. He dodged one more time by rolling to the side, and finally saw what she had spent this time creating. In front of her were lined dozens of werewolf skeletons, and for some reason he just knew that they were the ones they had battled in the forest together.

  The werewolf skeletons charged the first class and leapt onto its back and arms and legs. It was unprepared for an attack on this side, and stumbled under their weight. Niethel took this opportunity and lunged forward with his sword pointed directly at the werewolf's heart, but it smashed him away with one hand. He gasped as he felt his ribs crack and break, sending shards into his lungs and heart. When he hit the pole of a tent and fell to the ground, he could already tell that he was dying.

  The werewolf could not pursue him, as the many werewolf skeletons had finally succeeded in bearing it to the ground. They pinned it down, and just as Niethel saw Sophella's guardian walk up to it, activate a ward along the blade of its forearm, and then chop its arm down on the werewolf's neck, he felt the world go black, and his view faded.

  'I guess it was worth it, as long as she is safe.' He accepted oblivion, but even when he resigned himself to death, and whatever else it held, he felt the light coming back to him, and when he could see again he saw Sophella kneeling over him pouring the blood of a first class' heart into his mouth. When the blood was drained, she allowed him to eat the flesh, and he sighed as he felt the increase that surged though his body at becoming first class. He looked up at her face and smiled. She smiled back at him, but it was a moment before he realized that it was not one of her special smiles, and he did not understand exactly why she was smiling like that until she punched him in his still-healing ribcage. He yelled in pain and rolled on the ground until his ribcage was completely healed and he could breathe again.

  She rolled him over and looked him in the eyes. "Don't ever use me as your reason for living."

  He smiled again. "Damn mindlink." When he stood up, he felt how his body had changed and bounced up in the air a few times before retrieving his weapons. "So this is what first class feels like, huh? Now I've just got to get Demenn to show me how to turn all ugly."

  Sophella was busy dismissing her undead minions, and Niethel noticed that she had consumed a first class heart before she had saved him. "Yea, for you that would be an improvement."

  Niethel's witty retort was lost when Sophella clamped her hand over his mouth and shoved him into the side of the tent. He had no idea what was happening until he looked where her eyes were glued and saw another werewolf walking along the lane they had come through. It was obvious that he noticed the dead first class with the arrows in its eye and heart, but he still went right instead. He was a very strange werewolf, as he had to have been a first class, but was in his normal form, and his fur was milky white. He also had a strange translucence, as if he would disappear if one stared at him too long.

  Through their mindlink, he heard Sophella say 'Ghost,' and he suddenly understood and recognized the werewolf sorcerer for what he was. He asked her if they should attack him, and her thoughts hesitated for a moment before she nodded instead of answering. He could tell that she was as scared as he was, but that she knew what they must do.

  He quietly pulled an arrow from his quiver and wished that he had removed the Wolfsbane one from the body of the other first class. As it was, he fitted the arrow to his bow, crouched down, and silently turned the corner to see Ghost still slowly walking the opposite direction. Niethel drew the string of the bow back agonizingly slowly, and looked down the shaft of it. He knew that he could hit the old werewolf's heart.

  'Now.' Sophella's thought rang through his brain, and he released the arrow. It shot through the air, and was going directly towards Ghost's heart, but when it was about a foot away the air around him shimmered, and the arrow turned and flew around him before flying into one of the tents. Ghost turned and spoke as Demenn gaped at him.

  "You did not honestly think that I would come into a major battle without warding myself from foolish assassins who did not know the most basic laws of magic, did you?" His voice sounded like it was echoed back upon itself before reaching the hearer. He did not wait for a response, and even if he did, Niethel was far from capable of an intelligible reply at the moment. With a wave of his hand, green ethereal warriors floated up from the ground and stood in files before him. They were clothed in full battle array, and each had a sword and shield. When about twenty-five had formed, he sent them flowing above the ground towards the two of them.

  "I got these thingies," Niethel regained enough poise to say. "Can you take that guy?"

  "Not without about ten minutes of preparation." Her voice was shaky, and it was the first time he had seen her without a plan. For once she knew that her opponent was superior to her in every way.

  "You know, your plans seem to always include long periods of preparation in which I get the crap beaten out of me." Niethel knew that he did not have enough arrows to kill all of the specters, but even so he shot five at them just to see if they were material. He was relieved to discover t
hat they were, in fact, able to be killed, and smiled when he saw five of them fall through the ground and disappear. Having his courage bolstered, he drew his sword and dirk and charged them. The first one he met swung its sword down, and he, thinking it best to not meet blades with something so weird, ducked to the side and slashed out with his sword. He thought that the armor it wore would probably block the strike, but was surprised when his sword passed through it, only being stopped when it his the apparition's shield.

  Cut in two, the ghost slowly faded from sight, and Niethel smiled once again. For once this might be easier than he had thought. As the other surrounded him, however, he soon found that their swords were completely tangible. He was forced to work both of his weapons very quickly to stop or evade all of their attacks, and it was hard work. He was ducking, weaving, blocking, and parrying with all of his skill and new-found strength and speed, but it was not so hard that he was not able to slip in a few slashes with his sword and stabs with his dirk every now and again. He blocked one attack with his sword then stabbed his dirk up under the shield. The length of the blade allowed it to cut into the ethereal being, and it soon faded. Then he turned one attack wide with his dirk, swung his blade but was blocked with the shield, and flipped the blade over to the other side and sliced the apparition from existence from the other direction.

  He leapt over three of them, blocking their upward thrusts with his weapons, and stabbed his blades backwards after landing. They cut into two of the three and they disappeared. Before the last one could turn, its head floated above its body before both were gone. He was like a flash of light among them, always moving back and forth, jumping, rolling, lunging, and always killing at least one of them with every movement. He attacked with wild abandon, and he never seemed to stop, they also kept coming, but he could take them.

  Sophella was having a far harder time, on the other hand. To her credit, she was battling the greatest mage of the werewolves, and he gave her not a moments' rest to collect herself or summon her guardian. She was being forced to fight with only battle or defense spells rather than necromantic ones, which were her specialty, and every spell she cast was almost immediately dispelled and countered with a spell so powerful she could not dispel it until it was moments away from her. Several times she literally had to leap out of the way of a spell that was either too powerful or too obscure for her to find the counter spell for. She was obviously losing.

  Still, every moment he was battling her was one he could not use to bolster his troops that were fighting—and losing to—Niethel, which he did often enough as it was. Whenever he did, however, she would quickly animate some skeletons and send them at him from different angles, which would force him to spend a spell on each of them and give her some time to think of spells or just rest. It was just after one of those moments, as she took a second to rest, that a thought hit her, and she figured that it just might work.

  When Ghost turned his attention back to her, she dropped to one knee and shoved one palm onto the ground, sending a rumbling crack in the earth towards him, then stood as high as she could and threw her other hand into the air. A spark flew from her hand and into the clouds, causing a single bolt of lighting to fly down at Ghost. Then, as the last part, she placed both of her hands together and shot a bolt of black lightning from them with as much strength as she could muster. For his part, Ghost contemptuously redirected the small split in the ground, but then only barely was able to turn his attention up to the lighting bolt and split it in half. The bolt flew on both sides of him and struck the ground, but the bright light from it against his pupils blinded him for just a moment, and when his eyesight came back it was not sharp enough to catch the black lighting until it broke through one of his wards and slammed into him.

  Sophella smiled in relief when she saw him fly back, but groaned when he got up almost instantly. It had been a good idea, but it would not work twice, and now he was certainly angry. With one hand, he sent a flowing stream of ice towards her, and with the other he condensed the ten spirits left into three. These three looked the same, but they were much faster and stronger than before, and Niethel soon discovered that now their armor was solid. His sword clanged against it, and he sighed when he noticed that now their armor covered every inch of them.

  Strangely, the tables had now turned on both battles. Sophella was finally holding her own, if not gaining the upper hand, and Niethel was having trouble. The three warriors attacks in unison, but with completely different fighting styles, and since his sword and dirk could not penetrate their armor, he could only keep blocking and dodging. While he struggled, Sophella was doing far better than before. Ghost was obviously drained by getting hit, putting up a new ward, and condensing those warriors, and Sophella gave not a second of rest. She rode him mercilessly, and sent many of her best battle spells at him while forming one behind her back. He still blocked her spells, but now it was at the last second, and he was clearly on the defensive. He only got off two spells back at her, and they were halfhearted. Then her spell was done, and she sent a green mist floating towards Niethel. It flowed through the air, and then finally formed around his dirk.

  Niethel thought that he understood what was going on, and when the three of them attacked once again he lunged past two of them, slapped the third's attack to the side with his sword, and then stabbed out with his dirk. The enchanted blade slipped through the armor of the specter, and after a moment it dissipated. Niethel grinned. The other two attacked him, but he spun out of the way, brought his dirk around, and lopped off the sword hand of the one closest to him. It turned and thrust out its shield at his face, but he ducked under and chopped off its leg, then came up and cut it in half from groin to head. He took great pleasure in seeing its two halves float away. Only one left alive.

  Ghost had his wind back now, and the moment Sophella had sent the spell towards Niethel he had launched his counter-offensive. It was obvious that he was back to normal, and now Sophella was slightly drained from her last spell, which meant a lot in a battle of magic. The battle was becoming one-sided once again. She shot blue all over her hands and redirected a fireball from him before shooting the blue out of her hands as streams of pressured water at him. He made what looked like a curved shield, and the water hit it and was deflected to the side along with the curve of the shield.

  Ghost smiled after that and stuck both hands in front of him, with his palms open and his fingers splayed about. A chill ran though Sophella's spine as she recognized the spell he was about to perform, and her knowledge was the only thing that saved her as she threw up a wall of complete darkness in front of her just in time for rays of pure light to flow form his hands and shoot towards her at speeds faster than the mind can comprehend. The light hit the wall of darkness and was absorbed by it, but Ghost did not stop his spell. He kept spewing forth light, and that made Sophella keep her wall of darkness up. She realized what he was doing too late. He was making a bid for victory out of pure magical power. If he ran out of magic first, she would be saved, but if she ran out first and her wall came down, she would immediately be turned to dust. In the back of her mind, she knew that making that much light for combat purposes at night was far more taxing than darkness, but somehow she also knew that Ghost would not run out first, no matter what. She was doomed.

  Niethel was still fighting the last specter when burst of light filled the alley, and he was extremely lucky to not be in it when it hit. As it was, he still covered his eyes in pain and threw himself away from his opponent. He opened his eyes just in time to block a blow at his head. The specter swiftly pulled its sword away and stabbed Niethel in the side of the stomach. The sword went through him and spit into the ground beneath, but then it was stuck. Niethel looked at the wound and laughed before using his dirk to chop off the specter's arm. It then followed with the predictable shield smash, which hit him in the ribs, and only made him laugh more.

  "Is that really all you can do?!" He laughed, dropped his sword, grabbed the tip of
the shield, and pulled it away while getting to his feet and slashing the ethereal warrior out of existence. After it faded from view, he looked and saw the predicament Sophella was in. his eyes burned just from looking at the light, and he could not imagine the strain she was going through to keep the wall up. His first thought was to go for his bow, but then he realized that, with all of the wards that werewolf had, it would be as useless as before. Then he looked down at his dirk, which still glowed green, and an evil grin stretched across his face.

  He looked at Ghost, measured the distance in his mind, then took two steps back. He held his dirk in one hand and drew it behind his head. He was about to throw it when he realized that he did not have something funny, witty, or epic to say when he did, and that gave him pause. He simply could not think of throwing it and not saying something good, but nothing was coming to him.

  'Just throw it!' Sophella's thought thundered in his mind, and on reflex more than anything else, he took one step forward, pivoted his entire body, and launched the dirk toward Ghost. It went end over end, but, just like he had anticipated, when it reached a foot away from Ghost the blade was just beginning to face him. The wards around all glowed, and the multicolored lights were quite beautiful, but the green dirk cut through them like fabric. Ghost only had time to turn in alarm at seeing his wards breached, and then the dirk stabbed into him. It missed his heart by inches, but since he was in his normal form, it was still mortal, and he coughed blood when he reached over and pulled the dirk from him.