Atticus takes several steps forward and lifts his left hand, his palm turned to the right, index and middle fingers extended, his ring finger and pinky folded, and his thumb pressed flat against the side.
The undead rider, knowing that the knight is preparing a spell, unsheathes its rusted sword and lifts it, pointing it toward the Mistwalkers. It unleashes a hideous, ghastly warcry, which incites the other troops around it to rush the group of living fighters, weapons drawn. The rider urges his decomposed horse to sprint ahead too, passing the hostiles on foot and fastly approaching the knight, who stands his ground. The handful of reanimated bowmen begin to loose their arrows.
“Erik!” Veros, lifting his shield to defend himself against the ranged attacks, desperately calls out to the noble to give more commands. “Get rid of the archers!”
The noble complies without a word, and begins to nock and loose arrows with as much speed as his highly trained arms can muster. One by one, he manages to eliminate the enemy bowmen before they can overwhelm the group at range.
The rotted cavalry lifts its sword, descending upon the knight with intimidating speed, but before the Legion soldier is close enough to strike, a flash of white bursts from Atticus's fingertips, and the reanimated horse's head explodes into a gory mess. Its body crumbles and slides due to the momentum, and the armored corpse hits the ground with a loud thud, rolling like a ragdoll before being stopped by the knight's foot. The undead looks up helplessly in time to witness Atticus drive the end of his sword into its neck, piercing its flesh and severing its brain stem. Sadly, the loss of their leader does not stop the remainder of the rotted pack from continuing their charge.
“Spherus Infernum!” Zyra's voice is heard, and a sudden fiery explosion catches three rushing undead in one spell.
“Keep that up, Zyra!” Atticus yells to the mage. “Cover me while I try to cast!”
The pyromancer continues to lob fireball after fireball at the rushing horde, engulfing multiple targets in one blasts, and Erik continues sniping with amazing speed and accuracy. The occasional undead that manages to nearly reach the Mistwalkers is stopped and killed by Veros. However, more and more hostile cadavers continue to pour out from behind the grey wall of fog, becoming greater in number and denser in formation. At this rate, they'll be overwhelmed in a few moments.
Atticus tries to concentrate under the constant pressure. He holds his left hand up, palm facing to the right. His pinky and ring finger are folded, and his index and middle fingers are extended. Unlike Air Cutter, now his thumb is extended too, perpendicular to the side of his hand. He attempts to channel his focus by taking some deep breaths despite the chaos around him.
“Oh, fuck!” Kellar's frightened voice is heard. “Hey!” He yells to get the attention of those fighting to oncoming forces at the front. “They're here!”
Erik whips his head around to the group's rear, and the undead horde they ran away from mere moments ago have already caught up, emerging from the cover of the mist, one by one, in increasing volume.
“Shit.” Erik curses, realizing he's unable to cover both the northern and southern side of the team's position. Ultimately, he decides to aid Royd and Kellar defend the south, while Zyra continues to lob more fireballs to the north, where their numbers proceed to steadily increase.
“Atticus!” Veros yells in desperation between short encounters with enemies that manage to avoid the fiery explosions and approach them. “Hurry and cast!”
The knight silently acknowledges the urgency of the situation, still trying to gain the focus to conjure the powerful magic he mentioned that would help them escape an ambush. He closes his eyes for a brief moment and takes a deep breath. He can hear his teammates strain themselves – Veros bashing away foes, Zyra grunting as she flings flaming orbs, Erik uncharacteristically yelling in frustration, his arms and shoulders burning from the volume of arrows he's firing. The knight exhales.
“Aeza Infernum.” He whispers underneath his breath and turns his hand to face his palm forward while still maintaining the gesture. A long breath of fire spews from his hand continuously, scorching the charging undead up to thirty feet in front of him. As the inferno rages from his palm, he steps forward and slowly swings his arm from side to side to catch more enemies in its range.
“Good Gods.” Veros utters, stepping back to escape the spell's heat, amazed at the spectacle.
“Whoa...” Zyra, pausing from her attacks as well, stares in instinctive admiration.
Atticus continues to maintain the fire, setting dozens of oncoming necrotic foes aflame. They begin to drop and flail around in desperate attempts to free themselves from the infernal embrace, but to very little success. Finally, the northern horde's numbers begin to slow, and only stragglers begin to show up, but the knight still doesn't wish to let the spell go. Overwhelmed by the mental strain, he starts to become dizzy. He blinks erratically and shakes his head to overcome it.
“Atticus!” Zyra yells to him, noticing his behavior. “Release the spell!”
Barely hearing his comrade, the knight finally stops conjuring the fire from his palm and stumbles forward, falling to one knee. No longer used to the mental effort, he suffers a moment of deliriousness.
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“Zyra!” Erik calls to the pyromancer. “Behind us!”
She turns her head to see a number of undead charging at them from the south. She begins to throw more fireballs, but at a decreased speed, clearly feeling the effects of mental strain, herself.
“Atticus...” Veros walks up the knight. “Come on, we need to leave!” The veteran grabs his teammate's arm and hoists him up. “Can you stand?”
“I can.” Atticus quickly responds. “Let's go.” He wastes no time exerting his last bit of strength to walk back to his horse and mount her.
“Mount your horses!” Veros yells to Royd and Kellar, who are trying to fight off undead who escape the ranged attacks of the archer and mage. They quickly comply once they receive a moment's respite from the onslaught. They climb atop their steeds as Erik and Zyra continue to hold off some of the approaching forces.
Noticing that everyone's mounted again, Veros quickly orders everyone to retreat to the north. “We're leaving! Now!”
The six horses break off into another sprint, bashing into or trampling on some of the fiery undead that were lit aflame by the knight's spell. The enemies from the south slowly fall behind, but before they become totally obscured by the thick fog, a single reanimated archer looses an arrow that manages to catch up to the rear-most Mistwalker, Royd, and lodges itself in the back of his left shoulder.
“Agh!” The bulky man lets out a cry.
“Royd!” Kellar, who is slightly ahead of him, hears the scream and turns. “Are you okay?!”
“My shoulder!” The woodcutter replies, leaning forward in his saddle in pain.
“We'll take a look at it soon!” The rogue offers some reassurance as the retreat persists. “Just hold on!”
After riding for about three miles, Veros finally holds his hand up to stop the retreat. “Hold!” He commands, halting himself and the others behind him. “How is everyone?”
“My shoulder's feeling a bit itchy, Veros.” Royd's facetious but pained voice is heard. The veteran notices the arrow sticking out of his comrade's back.
“Damn.” Veros curses in frustration. “We're still a ways from Kildare – about ten miles. We should probably take a look at it while we have a moment to take a breath. I brought some medical supplies with me, and we're lucky to have not needed them until now.” He climbs off his horse while retrieving a tied up small sack full of medical materials, and approaches his injured teammate. “Come. Climb down.” He holds his hand out to assist Royd in dismounting.
“You sure it's okay stop now?” Kellar asks, eyeing the southern path, expecting more undead to emerge from it despite the distance.
“Only for a moment to assess Royd's wound.” Veros answers, examining the brawny man's back.
“It keeps shaking around while I'm riding.” Royd complains about the arrow. “It stings like a real bastard. Can you pull it out?”
“I think I can without worrying about much blood loss.” The veteran answers, closely inspecting the injury. Royd's leather armor and the fact he was riding with the direction of the arrow had prevented it from going particularly deep. “It's quite loose, so it'll probably fall out in a bit, anyway. It'll hurt, though. Are you ready?”
“As I'll ever be.” The bulky warrior responds, already clenching his jaw.
“Here it goes.” Veros clasps the shaft the arrow and tugs it out in one swift movement. Royd lets out a muffled groan of pain, and the veteran tosses the bloody arrow off to the roadside. “We'll need to take your armor off so I can get a good look at it, okay?”
Royd nods sheepishly, trying to overcome the sharp stinging. “Okay...” he musters.
As Veros assists Royd in removing his chest piece, Zyra approaches Atticus, who is hanging his head and rubbing his temples.
“Are you alright?” The mage asks, reaching out to place a hand on his shoulder. “I saw you strain yourself to maintain the spell. If you held on to it any longer, you probably would've passed out.”
“I'm fine now.” The knight responds, still softly pressing his fingertips against the sides of his head. “I'm not used to the focus needed to keep such a strong spell up for so long.” His mouth curves into a half-smile and he turns his head enough to look her in the eyes. “Told you I was out of practice.”
“Well, you did what you had to do to get us out of there safely.” Zyra continues to comfort him with a smile. “And you looked... really amazing doing it.” She bashfully compliments him. “I've actually never seen Fire Breath used in person before.”
“Thanks.” Atticus graciously accepts her kind words. “I look forward to seeing you do that spell some day, as well.”
Zyra smiles, quietly accepting his encouragement. Meanwhile, Veros has managed to removed Royd's armor and rip open his cotton shirt underneath it to examine his wound better.
“I think you'll need to be stitched up, friend.” The veteran comments. “Unfortunately, we're not in a suitable environment for that right now, but I'll disinfect it and give you some cloth to apply pressure with.”
“Stitches...” Royd laments his fate with a shake of his head. “I've gotten stitches a few times in my life, and I can't describe a more excruciating experience.”
Kellar's scoff is heard suddenly. “Big fella like you is afraid of needles?”
“Oh, leave me alone, you sniveling twerp.” The big man fires back.
Veros retrieves a corked bottle of disinfectant from his sack of medical supplies. “Alright, stand still. This is going to sting.” He removes the cork and slowly pours the burning liquid into Royd's wound. The painful sensation causes the brawny fellow to wince and muffle his groans. After that, Veros presses a square piece of cloth against the wound. “Think you can hold it like this for a while?”
Royd nods. “I think so.” He brings his right hand over his left shoulder to hold the cloth in place by himself.
“If you're lucky,” the team leader continues, “the wound will stop bleeding before we reach Kildare and you won't need those stitches.”
“Gods willing.” The woodcutter remarks with dread in his eyes.
“I can't believe we expected an ambush of some sort and they still caught us by surprise.” Kellar gripes.
“This is just my guess, but I think they acted under order of that undead rider.” Atticus gives his thoughts on the matter. “He seemed to be in charge of the plan. Either way, we underestimated their ability to strategize. It's a bit embarrassing we allowed them to trail us for so long, but the mist also made it extremely easy for them.”
“We should keep going. Kildare's still about a three hour ride away.” Veros states as he assists Royd back onto his horse before mounting his own again. “If we're all set, then let's go.”
After collecting themselves following the short but intense battle, the six Mistwalkers finally proceed north at a calmer pace, though every once in a while, they find themselves turning around to ensure nothing is behind them.