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Being woken in the night by an attack by a skaven raid party was not expected, although it should have been obvious in hindsight.
Rio had been on watch when it happened, and in the few seconds it took him to wake Fuyuko, half a dozen additional skaven sprung from the darkness with weapons drawn. Two lept directly at him, eyes aglow and handaxes flashing in the firelight before he warded them away with one of the few combat spells he knew. In a moment, Fuyuko was on top of them, daggers in hand, slashing at her opponent’s eyes with frightening speed. One skaven barely managed to dodge– escaping the blade with a shallow cut across its snout– but the other was not so lucky, and screamed in pain as both its eyes were cut through by the sharp edge.
Another dashed at Fuyuko’s turned back with shocking agility, its battle-scarred gladius appearing red hot in the light, only to be kicked backward into the fire they had lept over. Clumped fur caught easily, and the cries of pain from the blind skaven were swiftly joined by panicked shrieks of another.
More and more skaven kept coming, however. They emerged from the tree line with uneven teeth bared, weapons drawn, and eyes alight with the fires of every hell. Rio spotted a few who looked more bone than muscle– skin pale and taught, fur matted and dirty, eyes clouded and unseeing. They didn’t even seem to breathe in the chilly night air, only making odd gasping noises as they approached.
Rio had seen and fought undead during the invasion. He had heard stories of skaven bodies vanishing as soon as one's eye left them, rising from the dead and escaping into the night.
This was different. They were not escaping, not running, not vanishing. They were not the slow, mindless, shambling threat of undead during the invasion. Almost as soon as Rio realized what he was seeing, one of the undead skaven charged like a bull while drawing a scythe, while another plucked a bottle of orange liquid from a bandoleer and aimed at Fuyuko.
Rio could only barely dodge the first attack from the undead skaven scythe-wielder, causing it to cut him across the bridge of his nose as he fell backward in surprise. The shock was so great it took him two more barely dodged attacks– plus two more bleeding cuts– to remember Berezi’s principle– the phenomenon he had recorded proving that healing spells were detrimental to undead, which the great alchemist had used to craft a theoretical anti-healing spell that would work on undead for essentially no reason other than because he wanted to–
His train of thought was cut off by the sound of a yell of pain from Fuyuko as a bottle from the other skaven undead shattered, splashing a sizzling orange liquid over the beastkin’s hand. In the center of the clearing, the campfire still held a burning skaven, its screams of pain dying as it did. The undead skaven with a shortsword that had been keeping Fuyuko from dealing with the potion-throwing undead by matching her toe-to-toe in combat took advantage, slashing at her neck with a sickening speed Rio’s companion could only barely block with her remaining hand.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
Things were not turning out well. He wished that Saho were here. He’d probably make a joke about now, and then they’d beat all their opponents while trying not to laugh. As it was though, Saho was not here. Another scythe attack– this one aimed at his neck– missed him by a hair, cutting through his beard. But he had remembered! Just about any healing spell would do, although something stronger would be best…
The scythe-undead shrieked as the blast of green light pierced its chest, reducing its patchy fur to ash and dust, its whole body collapsing as its center of mass vanished in an instant. The potion skaven was caught in the side of the head as it turned at the sound, everything above its collarbone disintegrating in a single flash of green. An area of effect heal on Fuyuko relieved her injured hand and caused her undead opponent to start crumbling, hastened when the beastkin slammed the hilt of her dagger into the brow of the skaven’s skull, shattering it.
A living skaven was met with a bolt of red, throwing it into a tree where it collapsed bonelessly. Fuyuko’s daggers sliced at limbs and eyes wildly, cutting down what seemed like a dozen in only a minute. Rio kept her up with healing spell after healing spell, red blasting and green healing flying across the clearing, striking living and dead opponents alike. The campfire had almost been destroyed in the fighting, but even still the body of the skaven burned, casting a disgusting smell upon the camp.
Rio popped the lid on one of his emergency mana potions. Downing it all in one go only moments before it was shattered by a skaven arrow. Fuyuko stabbed into a skaven's heart from behind, cleaving one’s head off with a stolen battleaxe before leaping onto another’s back and slitting its throat in one motion.
Blood was roaring through Rio’s ears. The longer the fight went, the more he felt as automatic and mindless as his undead opponents. For every skull he’d crack with a spell or the end of his staff, another skaven would leap forward without a moment of hesitation. When only one skaven remained, a final spellbook-wielding undead, Fuyuko and Rio faced it together.
A burst of gold light behind them grabbed their attention.
Neither Rio nor Saho had ever felt as horrified as they did when Fuyuko’s chest was pierced by the ashen blade of a still-flaming skaven, its matted fur alight, burning eyes set in a charred skull, still half-wrapped in scorched skin. Its lungs held no breath, nor its heart any life.
The campfire held only firewood.
A blue spell splashed across the back of Rio’s head, and he could feel his body grow weak. His legs could not hold him. His ears could not hold Saho’s yells of anger and loss. The golden light reached out to annihilate the undead killers, but could not hold them. They slipped through the gaps of Saho’s power, hissing and gasping with laughter as they fled into the woods that held no justice, only darkness.
Saho was holding Rio. Saho was holding Fuyuko. But Saho could not hold his tears.
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By the rising sun, the forest clearing held two great stone tombs, each with the body of a hero. Carvings held their stories, and a god held their memories. To be mortal– even for a little while– was to be emotional. To be emotional was to be powerful, but such power held inaccuracy. Inaccuracy that had allowed monsters to escape justice.
And as the god retreated to the heavens, he cradled two souls, each hand holding a friend.
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