Dreadlords From the Dead

[Kristen Pirian]

Their only option was to feign death.

Beneath the glimmering canopy of the oak forest, through which golden sunshine of an otherwise bright day shone, several Anirian companies lay dead—or so it seemed. Kristen Pirian lay face down among the bodies—tired, wounded, fearful and, above all, patient.

She knew that the companies had been betrayed. Their very Commander, Jurgen Gelt, had purposefully led them into the waiting ambush of the Cortosi forces. And she knew this because as she lay on the ground after the battle's end she could hear his voice among those of the Cortosi; Gelt spoke with the Cortosi Commander as though they were the best of friends, and she could hear them sharing a laugh, and then, clearest of all, she heard Gelt mention "our arrangement" before he departed from earshot.

Her blood simmered with latent fury, mixing with all else, but this energy she saved: she was going to need it.

It had been some time since she had last heard Commander Gelt's voice, and presumably by now he was far from the scene of the battle. Much of the Cortosi force was now split up and scattered, some back at their camp, some patrolling afar to ensure security, some enroute transporting loot back to their camp, and, most crucially, only a small fraction now among the Anirian dead. Cortosi soldiers, along with a few civilian traders and laborers among their army to provide services, went around collecting the Cortosi dead and scavenging things of value from the Anirian dead.

Before Gelt could be tracked down and justice delivered, Kristen had to escape, escape, escape.

Kristen felt a soldier place his hands on her shoulders. With a heave he rolled her over onto her back. Now or never.

Her eyes snapped open. Alarm overcame the Cortosi soldier. He gave a holler of "TO AR—!" before Kristen's porcelain hand shot up and clutched him by the neck and crushed his throat. He fell dead as she stood high, blade now secured again, and as the other Cortosi soldiers now began to echo the call of "TO ARMS!"

But Kristen was not the only one who had been playing dead.

 

[Kian Heller]

That's going to scar. He knew for certain that because he had been bleeding out with his chest split open, this type of wound would take moments to heal.

Heller had taken down some Cortosi with him before someone ambushed him, sweeping the tip of their blade to slice into his flesh, crush a couple of ribs, and ran before he could finish the job. He heard it all, Gelt's betrayal and his premature victory.

Perhaps it was favourable that the Commander had not been trusted to know Heller's classified magic. He had been placed here to be play spy, through all the channels of power and standing, had been placed here to keep someone alive too. Heller had many masks, forgetting what his true one looked like, but who didn't like being something they were not?

A Dreadlord, but working in the prisons taught him to be tougher than anything the Academy molded him to be.

It was the life essence he stole from the wounded Cortosi, that by the time the enemy did a sweep to look for survivors, the groaning men around him were truly dead by the time they came his way. Heller stored that essence, fed it slowly to himself that his wound was no longer fatal, was free from risk of infection.

"TO ARMS!"

The call had been called above him, and with a moment's panic, Heller absorbed all the life he had taken from the wounded Cortosi and healed his gaping wound. He did his best not to make noise as he pulled himself to stand, dragging a blade from a fallen soldier with him as he advanced and sunk it's length through the stomach of one of the heralders, and with an effort, tore through to the man's side and opened him up.

 

[Kassandra]

Kassandra crawled within the muck on the far edges of the battlefield.

Despite Gelt's best efforts, during the mad rush of the ambush she'd managed to dive away from his grasp and into the utter chaos that had erupted. Everything had happened so quickly that she'd nearly been trampled twice over. Still, she had managed to cloak herself within the crowd, disappearing into the fleeing mass and eventually throwing herself between two large boulders in order to hide.

Ultimately she had absolutely no idea what had happened. But when the battle had broken out Gelt had come from her, tried to take her. Likely as a prisoner to be sold to the Cortosi for more coin.

Not that Vel Anir would ever bargain for her.

That much had been made clear to her when she'd joined.

Not that it mattered even a lick right now. Even though she hadn't been captured, the loss of life had been devastating. There was no doubt the Cortosi had won this battle, and it was a very real possibility that Kassandra was the only survivor. Quickly the Princess of Vel Anir crawled forward, staining her clothes as she pulled herself closer and back towards the battlefield.

Her head poked out from behind a covering, spotting the Cortosi Militiamen as they walked among the dead. One of them stepped up to a corpse, his spear shifting as he tumbled the heavy armored figure onto its back. The man seemed startled for a moment, and then suddenly called out to his nearby fellow. "TO ARMS!"

The shout went up, and suddenly two more figures in the field fell.

Kizzie felt her heart surge, excitement flickering through her chest as she realized not everyone was yet dead. Almost immediately she reached down into the satchel at her side, plucking free a slip of glass. It warped within her palm to become needle thin, and then shot forward to intercept one of the Soldiers running directly towards Kristen. The class slicing through his heel as he went tumbling to the floor.

"This way." Kizzie hush whispered as she jumped up for just a moment and motioned to her fellows.

 

[Kristen Pirian]

The advantage of surprise would swiftly fade. Though the Cortosi soldiers were in disarray and confusion now—the true reckoning of what was happening dawning only on those who saw with their eyes rather than heard with their ears—it would not last. A horn sounded, loud and carrying, its call blasting through the trees and surely reaching as far back as the Cortosi camp, maybe even to some of the outriders, and so the alert would be propagated.

To stand and fight would mean being overwhelmed, magic or no magic.

Escape! Escape! Escape! A fighting retreat if necessary, but the only hope of survival lay in flight.

Others, apparently, knew this too. As yet unbeknownst to Kristen, the fellow Dreadlord with her on Gelt's mission, Kian Heller, rose to his feet. Some of the Guardsmen, but a small handful, even as grievous wounds weighed heavily upon them, found strength in desperation, and so gave up their likewise ruse and rose to their feet to fight or to flee as each man saw fit.

But the disarray, the chaos, was to Kristen and Heller's (and, as Kristen would soon discover, Kassandra's) boon. Precious moments, waiting for none, slipping away as if impatient to see who would be the victor here: the ragged Anirians to flee with their lives, or the Cortosi soldiers to finish them all off.

Kristen faced down the closest Cortosi soldier, his curved sword raised and ready to strike. But something struck him before Kristen could even swing or thrust her weapon.

This way.

Kristen, starting with excitement and surprise, looked over her shoulder and saw the Princess Anireth herself (still alive, thank Aionus!) beckoning her to slip between two boulders of the rocky landscape and to disappear thereafter into the wilder and more untamed parts of the forest.

Kristen fiercely nodded, then, to cover their escape, she spoke a verse and called down an Ashen Crucifix right into the middle of the battlefield. It blazed brightly with its terrible conjured flames, and all those Cortosi soldiers who beheld it were stricken with a paralyzing fear, their eyes transfixed on the Crucifix and their legs unmoving as though turned to stone.

And Kristen slipped then through the path Kassandra had beckoned her to, her red cloak trailing along the stones in the narrow crevice in a final farewell to the tragedy left behind.

"We must hurry!" Kristen said to Kassandra.

Kian Heller Kassandra

 

[Kian Heller]

Movement and chaos ensued, but his dark eyes fell on those he would take the lives of.

His sword was nothing special, but the Cortosi make was not subtle. Heller had to move past that thought, had to make do with what he was so limited to here on the killing field.

The Cortosi could have wounded him again if they in fact had been a great deal faster but as soon as Heller laid a hand on them, they had no chance at even coming to terms that their lives would be snuffed out in mere seconds. Heller took from them, every morsel of life until they slowed enough for him to dwindle his opponents to a single one.

He stalked forward, stepping onto corpses as if they were stones upon the uneven ground. The Cortosi cowered before the dark figure coming towards him, and only when Heller's blade lifted did he notice the boy's age. Only a few years younger than him. Not a boy, but a young man, barely.

There was no time to waste.

And so, Heller's blade arced across, creating a ribbon of gushing scarlet as the young man fell.

The Reaper turned his gaze immediately, catching the figures of Kristen Pirian and Kassandra of the Anireths. By the way they moved, he figured they were not wounded as badly as he had been, but he was immediately onto their heels. "Keep moving! We must retreat!"