The Grim Legion

by Kindred Ult

  'Brokenhoof?!' Brand called out through his mind.

  There was a moment of silence, but an answer eventually came. 'Yes master?'

  'You and the rest of the minotaurs are giving me energy through our link, are you not.' It was not a question.

  Another pause. 'Yes master, we are. We cannot allow you to die, as if your soul is extinguished, ours will fizzle out as well. If we may be so bold, this battle is of global proportions. You would not be faulted if you were to use the power of a shaman.'

  This time it was Brand who paused, though his body still strained against the wall of muscle before him. 'Yes, I know Brokenhoof. Thank you for your energy, keep supplying it, but stop before any of your people die.'

  'Yes master.'

  Brand broke contact, and focused on the enemy before him. Their eyes were still locked, as were their bodies, but it seemed that the werepyre had realized that Brand had been distracted, as it had been slowly lowering the strength it was giving to the exchange, and now put it all back on at once. Brand was not ready for it, and fell to one knee as he felt his strength leave him. As his head fell, the werepyre grinned.

  "This is it, werewolf."

  Brand's head shot back up, but he was not looking at the werepyre. His sockets were empty, and he looked beyond his opponent, at all of the life forces that surrounded the battles that were enfolding. Grass, bushes, trees, insects, carrion feeders, small and large animals; all had their own life inside them. The power all around him dwarfed any that existed in a sentient being, and as a shaman, it was at his disposal. He had once sworn to never use this ability. Sworn on his life and honor as an elf and as a shaman. All shaman took the same pledge, and every one shunned the idea while at the same time forbidding each other from using it out of principle as well as out of rule. Never had he used it before, and even the thought of it left as bad taste in his mouth. He hated what he was about to do, and hated himself for needing it, but he knew that he was going to use it anyway.

  He looked down again and saw the life force of a single blade of grass under his feet. Pitifully small in its own right, but substantial when considered as one of millions. He looked past the werepyre and saw the life force of the trees. They were ancient in their own right, and their life forces shone greater than any other in the forest. With one change in his thoughts, he saw the life forces of the trees begin to pool at one part of them before eventually branching out in sinuous strands weaving their ways through the night toward Brand. He began to feel the power even as the grass immediately around him gave all of their life to him.

  Had the werepyre been paying attention, he would have noticed the grass around their feet begin to brown quickly, before finally turning black and crumpling to the ground. Unfortunately, all he noticed was that his opponent's strength began increasing. At first it was barely perceptible, but eventually it became increasingly noticeable. As the circle of dead grass surrounding them grew, so did the his opponent's strength, and as the change became more and more dramatic, the werepyre began to worry. What was even more disturbing, however, was the other change coming over the werewolf. It was slowly becoming smaller, even as its strength grew.

  Brand felt himself shrinking as well, and was perplexed. When he finally stopped, he was somewhere between his elf form and his normal werewolf form. His eyes were still gone, and his face and chest looked human, just more angular than before, but in his mouth his teeth were elongated and vicious. His ears were even longer than a normal elf's. His fingernails and toenails were still claws, and even though his muscles were not as large as a werewolf's, they were still larger than his usually were. His forearms, in particular, seemed almost disproportionally large compared to the rest of him. His hair was blond, but matted and clotted in dread locks behind him. He still kept his werewolf's enhanced senses, but now he had even more power than when in his first class form, and regained any speed he had once lost. It was about then that Brand realized he had gained the true form of a werewolf. All that they had lacked was unlimited power behind them, and the sensibilities of a clear, logical mind to become almost perfect.

  A tree off in the distance turned black and crashed to the ground before collapsing into ash, and Brand closed his large hands around the larger ones inside them. The werepyre towering above him silently bared its fangs against the pain, but still lowered itself as Brand stood to his feet. It was on its knees before he had truly stood, and when he let go of its hands, it barely even registered that it was free before his hands were around its head and it was being ripped in pieces. He ripped its heart out of sank his razor-sharp teeth into it. Off in the distance, a deer fell to the ground, its heart beating wildly before stopping suddenly. Brand continued walking towards his next opponent, the circle of dead grass following him, and a tear falling down his angular face.

  * * *

  Demenn was now on the defensive like never before. The small werepyre he was fighting was constantly swinging her swords back and forth at him. Her speed, mixed with her natural werepyre strength, made each and every strike she threw like a death sentence to Demenn, one he narrowly avoided each time. Most of the time, he dodged out of the way at the last moment, but sometimes he would block the strike with both of his hands on the handle of his sword, using all of his strength to stop the blade, or at least direct it to the side. He did both of these just enough times each, and also with no visible change before the movement, that he forced the werepyre to never be able to choose either pure strength in her attack, which would have broken down his defense, or speed, which would have caught his dodges. These small tricks, mixed with the fact that it was very painful to look straight at his sword, made all of the difference in keeping him alive, and were the only reasons he still was.

  Even so, he was forced to move back or to the side with every movement he made, while the werepyre moved forward against him. Each of her attacks were still at a speed and strength far beyond his own, and it was only by the skin of his canines, and due to the fact that she was much weaker than most werepyres, that he was able to defend at all. Even still, it took both of his hands, a larger, more sturdy sword, a strong stance, and the irritant of his sword to deflect a single strike by her. Every time one of her swords swung at him, his mind raced through loops in order to figure out how to dodge or block it.

  The werepyre at first attacked only from one side and then the next, but soon she began to attack from every conceivable angle, with many stabs, spins, and backhands in her efforts to pin Demenn down and cut him open. She was even able to swing up from below, with her sword slicing through the earth as if nothing were impeding it. Still, Demenn was able to avoid death, but with each step she took, her attacks grew in speed and intensity, and something she was saying under her breath became louder and louder. Once it was audible, Demenn finally understood what she had said before, and also why she knew who he was.

  "Wulf, for Wulf, I must avenge my husband!" It was a mantra she said over and over again, and it seemed so similar to Demenn's own rant while fighting Wulf that it sickened him.

  He was so taken aback, in fact, that he inadvertently slowed his pace, and where he was going to block, he had to instead duck under a slice at his head and then backpedal back in order to block the next one aimed at his chest. There was a screech as metal met metal, and sparks flew from the friction between the two surfaces, but eventually the sword was deflected. Just in time for her next attack. It was then that her chant changed. She stopped repeating her mantra and began talking to Demenn.

  "I loved my husband," her words were punctuated by a sharp thrust. "I would have given him the gift of our people eventually," A slash to the side, followed by one straight down. "But you killed him before I was able to," Another slash from below, flinging dirt at Demenn's face before coming up with cold metal. "You killed my only love! My husband!" She spun and slashed twice in quick succession. "I have the right of heaven, the right of a wife. The right of vengeance. The right of justice!"

  With a shock,
Demenn realized while he blocked, backpedaled, and dodged that he had felt the same when he had killed Wulf. He had thought that he was righteous in his motives, and that everything he did was in the right. Once he had finally killed him, though, he had lost that sense, and had found it necessary to find a new way to deal with his increasingly morally reprobate actions. Before Wulf, even as a human, he had justified everything through his desire for vengeance, but afterword, he had nothing with which to do so. He had been forced to look at himself without the lenses of justice, and without such a powerful tool for self-deception, he had grown to hate himself and all that he done and allowed to do.

  It was with that self-disgust that Lucifer had assaulted him, and it was with that desire for "justice" that he had cajoled him to accept the power. And it was within the bowls of his despair, and caught between the seemingly opposite feelings of self-disgust and vengeance, that he had found his answer. He had cried out for redemption, rather than revenge, for satisfaction, rather than self-disgust. With all of his being he had tried to find an answer, but none had come. His mind had been made, and the question asked, but no answer had come to him. He had buried the feelings until now, but hearing her blindness, he had to wonder about his own sight.

  Was what he was doing enough? Was anything enough? Was satisfaction possible, or was this self-disgust eternal? All of his life he had asked this question; unconsciously at first, and finally, when his blindness was stolen, with a full voice. But no one answered him, or if they had, he had not listened. And so he had come to decide that what had happened to him was only what he deserved. He had morphed his self-disgust into a feeling that what was happening to him was justice for his actions, and that his death would eventually pay for what he had done. He had morphed his self-disgust into something far greater, and had thought that it was right, that it was "justice." It had felt right to him, and he was resigned to his fate, until he had that dream, and felt what real satisfaction was like. What happiness actually felt like.

  He had been shown that something was still missing. Even judgment was empty. Even almighty Justice was flawed in and of himself. Something was there, beyond it, but it was past his grasp, he could not see it. It was as if it were inches from the tip of his hand, and yet he could not move toward it. Almost as fast as the inspiration had hit him, it was gone, and as he made another of his countless dodges, he felt his old feelings flowing back into him. With only one small spark of it left inside him.

  His mind had wandered, and once again a hit was thrown that he had not expected. This time, however, it was one devoted to strength. He did not notice the powerfully charged attack until it connected with his sword, and by the time he realized his mistake, he was in the air. He went back a dozen or so feet, and skipped off of the ground once before landing on his feet still facing the werepyre.

  "How can you still fight, knowing what you've done to me?" She seemed hysterical, devoid of her senses. "What have you to say for yourself."

  "Some things are more important than justice. And sorry." He held his sword out.

  "Hah!" She spat out a laugh as tears fell from her snout. "Sorry will not bring my husband back. Tell it to his corpse."

  "Not for him, for you."

  She checked herself. "What?"

  He closed his eyes and released a flash of light straight at her. He heard her scream as he ran at her, and opened his eyes to see her flailing about. Even in her pain, though she heard him coming. He opened his eyes to see his blade pierce her chest, but then looked down to see both of her sword in his gut. She smiled at him.

  "Now both of us die, vampire." She began to twist the swords around, which would have cut him in half, had not the rot from his blade killed her right then. She fell to the ground, and slowly morphed back into the image of a truly beautiful woman, save for the hole in her chest. Demenn tried to not look at the smile on her face and pulled out one of the swords. He noticed that there was something strange in the swords. They seemed to steal his strength, sapping his energy and breaking the clotting of his blood. He was barely able to take the first one out, and was losing strength to stand as his hands clasped the second one and began to pull it out of him. It moved by inches, with each moment bringing him agony, but eventually he was able to pull that one out as well. He fell to his knees once it was out, and began crawling toward Wulf's dead wife. Even though she looked human, she still had the heart of a werepyre and even though it would not raise his power, it could still save him.

  Even as he got closer, though, he saw something out of the corner of his eye that flooded him with despair. Lueke was flying toward him with teeth bared and a smile on his face. He did not understand why Lueke had not made his move before, but he had obviously been watching Demenn, and saw an easy kill. Demenn redoubled his efforts, but Lueke was moving with a speed only werepyre's could make, and he could never make it in time. In one last-ditch effort, he thrust himself forward, using his knees to give him an extra foot of length. For a moment, the body loomed in front of him, but then it moved farther away as he fell to the ground. His hand still reached, though, and he still inched forward even as Lueke closed on him.

  He decided to face death, and rolled over to look at the werepyre who would kill him. Lueke moved ever closer, and sneered with contempt as he raised one hand in preparation for a strike.

  'Vengeance begets vengeance. Death begets death.' Demenn thought even as the leader of the werepyres loomed ever closer to him.

  But then from the side a ball of black flew in and rammed into Lueke, four spikes shooting through his body and sticking out the other side. For just a moment, Demenn saw Samael smile at him in delight, and then the two of them were thrown to the side of Demenn as the momentum of Samael's charge hit Lueke. Demenn rolled over one last time and saw Samael yank himself out of Lueke before pulling his large weapon from his back and beginning to battle with the werepyre in the air. Samael's buzzing wings keeping time with and even surpassing Lueke's in mobility. Lueke fought with only his hands, but used his forearms to block the spike of Samael's stick. They fought with a fury that belied words, and they flew higher and higher in the air.

  Demenn watched them for a while, but eventually the steady plopping of blood in a pool of it below him on the ground caused him to finally roll himself until his chest was on the ground. He crawled to Wulf's wife, reached his hand inside her chest, pulled out her heart, and drained it. Quickly, his wounds began to heal, and out of each of them, a small piece of wood eventually shot out. He thought that this explained his sudden weakness as he stood up and looked around.

  Amazingly enough, most of Lueke's guards were dead, but unfortunately, werepyres that had still been with the army were starting to attack them. Demenn wanted nothing more than to help Samael with his battle as best as he could, but he realized that these other werepyres would need to be killed before anything else could be done. He stood, picked up the Sword of Office, and rushed toward the closest melee.

  "Huh, now I have both husband and wife inside me." A tinge of self-disgust crept back into his voice. Moments later he was running at the werepyres that had realized the problem their leader was experiencing and were joining.

  * * *

  Skull could not stop laughing. At the moment, his conjured skeletons were fighting five different werepyres, and were being absolutely slaughtered. The group of captains and powerful fighters that had teleported into battle was down to ten or eleven, and those left alive were either exhausted, fighting for their lives in a losing battle that would eventually take their lives, or were strangely and amazingly triumphing over their foes. Not, of course, including that one captain and werepyre who were still flitting about just as fast as when they had first started. No one knew who was winning between the two of them, and frankly Skull did not care.

  His skeletons were being annihilated, and he still did not care. It turns out that dying once can have a remarkable effect on one's psyche. Finally, all of his skeletons were dead, and the five werepyres
charged at him as one and impaled him with their swords. The blades shot through him, appearing on the other side, and he laughed even harder than ever. They paused, troubled, and wondered what they should do, but before they could decide, Skull reached out his hands and touched two of them on their faces. Their skin began to shrivel and crumple away, and in seconds they were dried husks lying on the ground.

  The other three instinctively pulled out their swords and jumped back while Skull pulled the other two remaining swords out of his body and dropped them to the ground. Two of them charged him again, swinging their swords in from each side. Their charge stopped his laughing for a moment, those kinds of attacks might actually be able to hurt him. However, with a smile he produced two portals right in the trajectory of the sword's swipes and then, as the swords got closer, made two more to the sides of the werepyre's heads. A quick cackle burst from his bared mouth as the werepyres' swords passed through the portals in front of them, disappeared into the darkness, and then reappeared from the second portals to cut off their masters' heads.