Storm of Prophecy, Book I: Dark Awakening
Page 40
Its jaws moved in to bite him. His heart pounded and burned with the rush of fear while he scurried backward. Its teeth snapped, barely missing him. The head moved closer over him before it collapsed. Dead. Vincent lay where he was, breathing hard from his fright and trying not to think about how near he had come to dying.
Though exhausted, he didn’t want to be caught like this. The loathsome creature’s chin rested painfully atop his legs. More pain came as he pulled them out against the heavy weight. As he stood up, soldiers in red quickly ran past to join the fray behind.
A black arrow suddenly thudded in a nearby tree, startling him and tearing him away from his thoughts. Others ripped through the forest before striking similar obstructions. They were getting closer. Explosions punctured his ears, accompanied by the roar of flames and battle cries. He immediately drew his sword and glanced over his shoulder, seeing the endless carnage ensue.
Vincent rushed to aid his comrades. The dead were as savage as ever, yet as they fought on, it became clear that their ability to sustain the onslaught was gone. Whether because of the terrain, their disorganized nature, or otherwise, magic and steel were tearing them down with a vengeance. As their numbers thinned, Vincent often found himself teaming up with others on a single foe. Flashes of light raked down the hapless remaining stragglers in a quick succession before they could get near.
Things were suddenly more quiet than ever before. It had felt as though the sounds of combat had gone on for so long that it could never be quiet again. There was no more slashing steel, no explosions, only the soft sounds of fires burning, heavy breathing, and rustling mail. A nagging fear that the cultists were silently approaching kept any sense of relief far at bay. Several men coughed on the smoke.
Vincent’s eyes were suddenly assailed by a strange sight. Fires were going out everywhere, some hissing, some stopping in a huff. The pyromancers among them were using their control over fire to extinguish the blaze, making safe both their army and the forest. He caught a glance of Rick straining each time he closed his hands, snuffing out the few green flames that remained.
Without these bright reminders of the battle, the area became somewhat dark in comparison. It was a cloudy day, and the forest canopy only dimmed things further. Black arrows ripped into the trees once more, only a few made it far enough to be destroyed by lighting. As Vincent’s eyes adjusted, Master Anthony ordered the soldiers back into formation. The wizards gathered ahead of them, and Vincent joined their front. There was still one more group of foes that only they could contend with.
They marched out of the forest, destroying sparse, incoming black missiles along the way, which became thicker the closer they got. When they were clear of the trees, he immediately beheld eleven of the skeletal cultists sitting atop their mounts, standing a ways downhill but closer than before.
Flashes of light intensified, destroying the constant stream of conjured arrows. Vincent swiped one with his sword. Clyde, the only one with eyes and partial skin still on his face, laughed deeply, the sound coming through the closed teeth of his skeletal jaw. Green light began to grow above the staff of the cultist beside him. When Rick yelled out that he couldn’t stop another one, they were all stricken with a wave of fright.
Clyde’s laugh continued as his eyes flicked toward the growing green mass, thinking this nothing more than a game. The cultist near him prepared to unleash their doom. Before the flame reached its full size, its owner was suddenly flung forward off its steed and crushed in front of them by a boulder. Out of breath, Karl fell to one knee.
Clyde was silent again at first, but then laughed once more when he saw Karl’s fatigue. His ghastly voice was calm to his fellows when he uttered, “cleanse them.”
After another volley of black arrows, all the cultists raised their staffs. Green fire grew above each one. Everyone stopped and watched.
From the ground, Karl swept his arm across and screamed a hoarse “NO!”
Sod was torn up from the ground along with dirt and stone in a cloud swath that struck the cultists with full force. Most were stalled for a moment, then he did it again from the other side. And then again and again, going faster. The dead were suddenly in disarray.
“Now!” Master Anthony yelled.
All the wizards suddenly unleashed a terrible streaming barrage of fire and lightning. It was stopped by the same invisible barriers as before. From Master Anthony’s right hand came several thicker lightning bands all at once. They were stopped by all but one of the cultists, who was blown apart. Karl kept furiously swinging both his arms toward them, hammering them with clouds of cobbles and clumps of loose soil. Soldiers behind them threw spears, sticks, and small rocks. Vincent picked up a stout branch from a shattered tree and lobbed it at one of the undead mounts, adding to the confusion.
The green flames went out, none were able to maintain it. Magic from their side streamed forth constantly. Master Anthony destroyed another.
Clyde tried to shield himself with his staff arm. “Pull back!” His now deep and otherworldly voice finally sounded out in retreat. Vincent couldn’t believe his ears.
The now eight black robed cultists turned tail, fleeing atop their horses in the opposite direction. A cheer rose up from all the wizards of the keep, several of which thrust fists in the air in triumph. Despite their fatigue, soldiers around them roared, seeming even more glad to be rid of them.
Vincent watched as the black figures galloped like mad down the grassy slope, trampling over the massive remains of soldiers and undead villagers. Several of their mounts still had spear shafts protruding from them. He was apprehensive at first, wondering if they would turn around to continue the fight. They passed between the craters left from Master Anthony’s strikes. He let out a breath and his anxiety eased when they at last entered into the far country beyond, and kept going. When they were at the edge of his sight, they disappeared into another forest.
With the high level of fear and tension gone, Vincent gazed out at the multitude of death covering the ground downhill of them as though lost in a trance. He thought he might be sick. He had never imagined that such horror existed. So many lives had been cut short so quickly.
Unable to help himself, he walked amongst it toward the front where they had met the enemy head on. He was too drained even to cry. The piles told the story of where their two forces had clashed. He wanted to turn away from it, to close his eyes and make it vanish, yet was unable to do so. Pools of blood were everywhere. So too were pieces of every body part conceivable. Ravens and other carrion birds began to arrive as a light rain began to fall.
A severed head caught his attention. He stared hard at it. Was it Harold’s? He couldn’t be sure. The gray eyes were streaked black, and the person’s face was covered with rot and a mess of blood. Vincent decided that he didn’t want to know. He realized right away that a large number of bodies would never be properly identified.
He turned away from it. With his left hand, he grabbed his own hair in a fist while he held his sword low with the other. He looked down and saw what his own clothes were covered in…and smelled. Only now, without the fear of death, did the reality of what he had just been through sink in on him. It was unbearable.
With his next step, something tugged on his foot. He looked down and noticed a wooden pole among the blood and bodies strewn beneath him. It was long, too long to be a weapon. After some pushing, he saw that attached to its head was a flag, a tattered red flag with a black lion crest. Their flag. He sheathed his sword and picked it up tightly in both hands, pulling it out from under a dead body.
He gazed out at the corpses littering the battlefield once again. Kargoth was coming; of this, he had no doubt. His heart wept for the courageous soldiers and wizards that had fallen, and for the people who had been murdered and used against them. Even if he lived for a thousand years, he would never be able to forget this one day, no matter how much he might want to.
Nor would he forgive their enemy.
; Letting out a hoarse yell borne of mixed sadness and fury, he forcefully planted the blood stained pole in the ground before him, sinking its end in the dirt and holding it there. A wind picked up and the Rygan banner began to flap in the breeze. He let go and stepped back to watch it, slowly letting out a few anguished breaths.
Victory.
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