A buoyant atmosphere inhibited Cascading Fossegrim tavern and house of joys as Ashnan ordered a second round of drinks from the payment they received for striking down Uchitemar. His small, round black eyes reflecting the drunken merriment soothing his mind as he regaled the tale of their journey through the Vesgeriath Woodland, the battle against the hordes of revenants and undead raised by the Queen of the Damned, his company a few old comrades from his days in the legion and four courtesans’ for each of them, the finest women one can found in the city per the marketing of the establishment. Which proved to be correct in his drunken mind.
Though the gaiety of the city, of the Cascading Fossegrim came to an end as the joyful laughter of the courtesans, the comrades of his got drawn out by the screams of the people, and the warped shrieks of the undead crowding the streets. His old dwarven comrade, always keeping a weapon on himself rushed to the door as a demikin faun undead broke in, and its claws swept through the throat of an aevhen courtesan, spilling blood onto the wooden frame of the door and its grotesquely decayed visage.
Before the stout dwarf could reach the undead, runes of dawn carved onto Ashnan’s left arm while his vines glowed in the same shades through his pale scaled skin and a spear of pure iuboron matter flew out from his smooth, veiny palm right into the undead gorging on the corpse of the slender aevhe. Its scream rang through the space of the house of joys as the radiant energies devoured its distorted form, cleansed his tainted soul.
Without needing to say any word, the rest of the patrons, courtesans and servers rushed to the stairs and locked themselves onto the second floor while Ashnan and his old comrades rushed to the chaos tenanted streets. Screams came from the windows of the houses and the streets where the few custodians fought back against the undead rushing from the direction of the marketplace. Ashnan cursed under his nose as he quickly sobered up to the nauseating smell of the dead saturating the streets.
He rushed down behind the dwarf before an emaciated ursine demikin grabbed him with his bulky, gaunt hands and hurled him into the alley. Out from instinct, his arms glowed in amber and light mauve as the undead threw itself onto him, its small mouth ajar beyond its limits. He pressed his webbed hands onto its still black sinewy abdomen dripping coated in black ichor and a dark violet mist of nekrotic matter.
As the two primal energies connected, he felt the coldness of dusk and the warmness of dawn intermingle as both scorched him from within and grew piercing chilling needles. He felt his fingers growing numb whilst the iuboron matter broke through the layers of nekrotic runes binding the cursed soul of the ursine whose gratefulness soothed the terror of finality sweeping over him as the dim yellow fangs neared towards his face.
When he looked up, feeling to curse at his old comrades, he held back his words when he noticed them. The dwarf evading and striking back, cutting the undead down of near infinitude quantity. Dawn and flame spells hurled from the niuvhen comrade of his, incinerating, devouring the pouring dead whilst the orkh torn to pieces with his head hurled at a nearby custodian with a force that tore off her head from the neck.
On the ground near his feet sinking in to the blood and ichor soiled mud and snow, Ashnan quickly reached down for the short blade that once glistened with a white luster resting near the torn remains of a brace and youthful skaeze whose face frozen by the terror of death. The moment his hand gripped the smooth handle, Ashnan swung with his amplified might as his dim veins glowed through his arm and sleeves. The blade ran easily through the weakened, moldy form of the undead plant-folk while channeling iuoboron matter into the sharp blade.
Whilst running with his old comrades towards the training grounds to join forces with the others, possible even alert them in case the chaos haven’t spilled into upper levels of the city, Ashnan folded one arm before his chest, the other placing the blade onto it, pointing before him as he thrusted forward straight into the head of the approaching dead whilst his sides were covered, protected by the dwarf and the magus whose fair pinkish hands of unblemished skin hurled one spell after another, showing no sign of the Rage of Acheryon yet – making Ashnan envious as the warm tinge he felt started to torture his insides with an ignominious scorching.
Paired with the burning of his thighs’ muscles, and the few dead looming in the now silent and ascending street’s houses vacant of life and tenants, greatly diminished their marching upwards, and though he wanted to question his old comrades how many vagrants, mercenaries, merchants were taken he decided to hold back on those words as few dozen of the undead appeared from the dark recesses between the towering gloomy houses. “Just like in the Irstaeinn Valley.” The dwarf muttered out in his nasal tone, recalling the day their unit was surrounded in the deep glacial valley of the far eastern shores of northern Vhalleryon.
“At least there no nekros leading them right.” The aevhe said jokingly as his amber energies swirling around his arms burst into radiant flames searing both Ashnan and the dwarf while the nearby leftover snow melted away at its conjured heat. “No nekros, just a nekromancer probably.” Ashnan said as he changed his stance, forming a round shaped ward of bright dawn red and golden whilst he bit onto his lip as the iuoboron matter began to gnaw at his soul.
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“Nekromancers are the worst.” The dwarf said with a chuckle. “You think you brought them down, but like their minions, they just get back up.” The other two chuckled whilst said minions slowly approached towards them like ravenous hyenas surrounding their prey, then lunged at them at the very same second when trampling came from the north, turning a few of their attention to the approaching group of custodians, legionaries led by Aelfsigior and Saugh.
**
With an almost voracious gaze, Azugh watched filled with wonder as the belts unbuckled around Saugh’s large hammer fastened to his back and lifted it easily lifted it over with one arm and swing at the enervated triumvirate of charging dead whose withered, dry forms shattered into at least six pieces as the somewhat angular part passed through them with great force and velocity and stopped before it would land on the shields of the auxiliaries and custodians engulfed in radiant iuboron matter.
In that moment, as he looked back at his own weapon, a long axe dripping with the black ichor of the undead man laying before him once more unmoving, young Azugh knew what weapon he would one day use when setting off to the wider world with Eadwald, Sigi and Amiriniel when the time came. “To your east!” As he was lost in thought, Eadwald pulling his glowing golden blade out from the rotten body yelled to him, pointing at the hulking oghrin undead whose rushing steps trembled the ground beneath their feet.
Its distorted bellow sent a deep terror Azugh never felt in his life, a terror of primal fear as in a moment he found himself frozen akin to the trance he found himself in after killing Uchitemar a few days prior. As the towering undead reared with each passing moment he felt an eternity, his fathers and Eadwald’s yell brought him out from the frozen state, in great part thanks to the former sensing the moats of nekrotic matter floating in the putrid air spewed by the undead.
Even though his legs were still tensed by fear’s hoary needles, Azugh achieved jumping out from the club held and aimed at his statuesque, wiry form encased in the ivory plates and dark reddish thick hide tunic devoid of balance when he landed on his sides, his weapon slipping from the loose grip of his still tremulous hand. He quickly reached and grabbed it once more, and swung while instinctively pouring mana and forming a dawn spell around its curving blade, the ecstatic sensation that warmed his soul banishing the last remnants of the planted fear.
With a swift strike, the blade went right into the gnarled trunk of an ankle, slicing the rotten, blackened sinew left to form the tendon, then as he watched it turn towards him, he rolled back onto his feet. Relief settled in his heart, soothed him further when two more legionaries came to his aid, their long pikes penetrating the soft, yet still thick festering grayish hide and a second bellow followed in vain as the resolution of dawn gripped their hearts, thrusting away at the unseen forces of dusk.
Though the pikes stroke truly and deeply, their tips emanating a mist of warm golden, amber and violet, the raised kin of Azugh remained still, and its bulky and gaunt hand grabbed the pikes and lifted the Illius-baked aevhe up and slammed him onto the cadaver of his comrade. The impact dented his breastplate, broke his rib with the broken off pieces lancing his lung and heart.
The second truscian man flew into one of the edifices, his form breaking through the robust walls, still alive thanks to his shield raised in time to lessen the force. Though he remained in the land of Oneiron whilst his stalwart form remained on the oaken floor, limbs stretching in all points of the compass. Amidst all this, Azugh threw his axe into the back of its sloping head seemingly lacking a neck and rushed opposite to the way of the incoming club.
He held his hand out and the after a few twinges, squirms the axe detached from the mushy flesh, from the wound a dim violet mist arose, leaked trimmed by the darkness of the night sky towards it headed while equally dark ichor flowed onto the ground, yet through all this the undead remained unfazed, swinging the club in a circle trying to land a hit on Azugh who drew him away from the others occupied by the seemingly endless number of undead.
Baited by him, the rotting oghkin followed him into the narrow recesses, barely fitting as chunks of flesh scraped off his degrading body, his bones screamed like metal or nails drawn across polished boards. Whilst his eyes remained on the oghkin, he occasionally looked behind hearing the few approaching undead whom quickly met their second doom as his axe cleaved them either in two or even three when they continued crawling towards him.
Then when he reached the end of the second recess, his back still turned to the mass of rotting flesh and sallow bone focusing on the ravenous, starving undead lunging at him, he suddenly became aware of the absence of tremors created by the forceful steps and turned around to see the oghkin stuck between, squirming which proved weakening as with each twinge, large lumps of blackened flesh fell off, and even the pallid bones showed cracks.
Led by this, he tightened his grip and charged back, pouring more and more iuboron matter infused mana into his axe which shined as brightly as the Illius as he raised it almost overhead while leaping to strike into the large, gaunt and brutish head now exposing the pallid skull wreathed in shadows and dusky violet. With as much as force that was in his arm feeling a slight searing in it, he plunged the axe into the skull, shattering it in two and revealing the stained dark soul still encased in the collapsing body.
As the spell overabundant of iuboron matter infused mana broke into the undead oghkin, the night shrouded world turned a white blur before Azugh as the blade’s shimmering cumulatively risen to the heights of the Illius, almost. With a white blur remaining before him in that moment, still hanging onto the metallic hilt of the axe, he felt its release as the towering rotten form crumbled into stony firm ash, he felt the weightlessness of the short fall softened by the corpse of a vampyr custodian.
The sounds of battle lessened as the dim world returned and Eadwald reached his arm out to help him onto his feet while complimenting him, then asked him of his well being while the first milder signs of the Rage reared their head. “I’ll sleep it off.” He said grimacing as he experienced for the first time the indescribable pain of the soul.