Hanging on Bones

Chapter 9: Herding the Bones

The blue. Why does it always has to be blue? All the good guys associate themselves with blue. Are they nuts or something? I used to work several different kind of night jobs, during which the red colour was much more desirable. Being in the dark with very small amount of red light allows me to see almost perfectly, while with the blue light eyes hurt and there are shadows everywhere. Red is easy on the eyes.

Well, I don’t have eyes so why do I care?

Seven small blue portals appear around me. Perfect circle, with me lying on my back in the middle. Yeah, the good guys are arriving. Right.

As I try to stand up, I see shadows emerge. Human shapes. I beg all the gods who would listen, for arrivals to be noobies instead of veterans.

The movement that is taking me, on to my feet, is combined with scimitars leaving their holders. Yeah, the invisible adrenaline rush is proving effective. The left arm is moving as if it was never removed.

All pretence of quietness abandoned. Having two blades, one per each hand, I observe the intruders ahead of me. Someone must have listened, because only one out of four in front, is equipped properly. The portals already disappeared and they have spit out single human each.

The distance between us is quite far considering this is a trap. Four meters gives me enough time to get my bearings. Especially since there is little bit of confusion on their faces and they are fumbling for weapons.

All except for the experienced one. She looks tough as hell with the heavy metal kite shield and double-edged straight sword at the ready. Her armour quality is also much better, with metal protectors covering her joints and shoulders. What’s with all the tough women always coming at me!?

The distance is enough for me to risk it. I take two quick glances back. Out of remaining three, only the one directly behind me is visibly stronger. That’s a man equipped with three spiked balls hanging on chains, which are connected to baton in his hand. The hell…? What kind of weapon is that!?

He’s also wearing face covering helmet and chainmail, which gives him away as more experienced veteran then the ones before. But who knows? Maybe equipment is not everything.

The other five seem as weak and inexperienced as new born babies. Their armour is the same leather I’ve seen before but their movements are too hasty and sloppy.

As I’m looking one of them dropped the weapon he just unsheathed.  That is my chance, isn’t it!

I make a dash in that direction, but the Kite lady is in front of me before I manage to change the row of graves. She’s way to fast! Instead of using the blade she throws the shield out at me, and I’m forced to jump back.

The hell! The flail guy! On instinct I make a roll to the left, and sure enough, part of the grave I was standing on explodes on impact with the spiked balls. Stone shards shower my back as I continue to roll between the graves. For the f***ks sake! I lost one of my scimitars!! Damn it!! How the hell do I make the roll with two blades in my hands!!

The slope here is not steep, so the drop of one foot does not affect me much. My evasion, took me out of the range of ‘bashing duo’ but I’ve almost ended up on top of one of the noobies. Blond, big eyed, with huge pimple on his cheek. Seems like he is so surprised, that after reflexively jumping back, he forgot to attack. I’m lucky today. Hmm. Or not.

Standing up is not as graceful and quick as before, which gives the blondie time to get ready. But instead of attacking as he expected, I throw myself at his left arm. In his surprise he launches feeble slash, while stepping back at the same time. This reduces the force of his swing to minimum and I deflect it easily. But instead of killing him, I’m using his left arm as a pivot point and plaster myself to his back. I look over his shoulder while keeping my blade at his throat.

Hell no…  His throat is opened up to the spine, as I try to jump back. However as I suspected, I cannot. The blade of Kite-lady went all the way through the blondie and lodged itself at an angle between my ribs. Are you nuts lady!? You just killed your own, you know!? All of you have the same blue emblem on armours, right!? Is killing me sooo fu**ing important!?

Looking at her face peeking above the shoulder of the dead kid, I do not see any emotions. This gives me phantom shivers again. In the corner of my vision, not far behind is the chain-flailing guy.

Not waiting any longer I drop my weapon and put my hands on the dead guy’s shoulders. Pushing myself up and jumping at the same time, releases me from the upward slanted blade. Without the weapons my weight is much less than I expected, giving me enough speed to avoid the flails. They smash into the upper back of battered blond corpse.

Killer duo damn it.

I did not have chance to defeat them when I had two weapons. But now it’s less than a dream. I got to run!

Making a dash along the row I’m on, I see it will not be so easy. There are two trainees in my way. Even though they saw what happened to the blondie, there is happy look on their faces. Why the f**k!? F***ing psychos, all of them!!!

There is a bit of space between me and the crazies, so I throw quick glances around.

Out of the trap there are 6 humans left. Two veterans behind me, two trainees on my right, and two in front. That would mean perfect choice for me is to go to my left, down the slope, huh? Sadly the four humans I’ve been hiding from are approaching from that direction. It’s not like we’ve been quiet now, is it? That makes one mage and three heavily armed warriors coming this way. This is getting better and better.

Up the slope then! Going up the slope never failed me before! That means another obstacle course, jumping over headstones and rising levels every two or three meters, but who cares?  I’m expert at it already! And I’m betting the noobies will have some problems.

The only difficulty might be the two trainees that are still there. After being teleported here, they did not change the row of graves. In fact they must have been fumbling with weapons and armour while all this happened. I’m still two rows down from their position. As I change the direction of run and start going upwards, I can almost see them tensing up.

One of them is quite pretty, slim girl with long wavy hair and big double bladed war axe, while the other one is dark skinned, bolding, middle aged guy with two knives. Damn, what are they!? Flip and flap comic duo or something!? Shouldn’t you swap those weapons!?

I choose the guy. There’s no way he can do me any serious damage with those knives and he’s fat enough that I doubt he can move fast. This choice gets me little bit closer to the killer duo, though.

One jump and I’m over the headstone nearing the guy. This might be a close call. Kite lady is almost on my heels so there’s not much time. Luckily, seems that without my weapons I’m quicker than her.

The knife lover is waiting on me with big smile spreading his lips. I jump up to his row and faint lunge to the side. As I expected his movements are slow and inexperienced. But his incompetence is soo high that he simply failed to react to my faint and accidently managed to connect with both of his stabs. This proves the saying that master is more often defeated by total novice than by his best disciple. The unpredictability is huge factor.

Still I’m bony skeleton so what can the daggers do to me? Except for lodging between my ribs, nothing much. So I ignore the guy and keep on running. He actually helped me in a way. I have two weapons now.

I’m quicker now so I should get away from them easily. As I glance back to confirm this, I’m rewarded with medicine I served before. Some kind of candle crashed in to me and I stumble. Luckily the split second of warning was enough for me to keep myself standing, even though I hit the headstone pretty hard.

This might be The End for me huh…

But to my huge surprise mere second later, the kite-lady jumps past me. The hell? She did not manage to break on time or something?

The flail guy is almost here so I better continue on running. Glancing back I see that the fat knife lover is sprawled over one of the headstones and bleeding like pig. He must be dead or dying. What the hell!? Is she using me to kill off the noobies!?!? What the f**k is going on here!?!?!

As I run at all my might, I see her two rows above, running parallel to me. She’s actually overtaking me!! She’s faster than me damn it!!! What is she up to!?

Glancing back I see the flail guy also changed rows and is up slope from me. They are blocking my path back!

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She’s already several graves ahead of me. She then turns to go down slope and forces me in the same direction. Damn it! I’m being herded!! Like some kind of f***ing cattle!!!

If I attack them I will definitely die, so it’s not like I have much choice, damn it! AAArrrrggggh so frustrating!! Few more graves and I’m running back from where I came.

And they are herding me… back to the noobies…

What? I’m here so that they can kill them? But the mad bastards are smiling all the way! The corpse of that knife lover had huge grin on his face! What the hell is wrong with you people!?

Very well, you crazy b***h. If you want to make those nut cases meet their maker, so be it. I will be glad to oblige.

Ah right. I still have the knives. Yanking them out is quite easy and they quickly find their way into my hands.

First on the line is the beautiful battle axe. She’s quite small little thing. The heavy duty two-handed weapon she’s carrying must weigh as much as she does. Scary bloodthirst in her eyes, smiling like crazy, she’s running keeping the axe high above her head. I’m surprised she can lift that thing, much less keep the balance while running.

Few meters before reaching her I slow down while trying to exaggerate my motions. It proves effective and she drops the axe too quickly. It hits with huge impact that shatters not only the stone slab and axe blade, but also her arms. The backlash from that thing must be terrible. The surprise on her face, does not have time to change back to smile as I slash her neck open.

Increasing my speed once again, I realise that if I keep on running with my full speed, even though at least one of the killer duo might be faster than me, they should tire out and slow down. I just hope this happens before we run out of the crazies or the sunrise.

That leaves me two mentally deranged to take care of. But there is another problem. The four lost happy campers that heard music of our play. Damn my rotten luck. It must have rotten off together with my flesh.

The two nutcases are quite eager to meet their doom and have been running towards me. That means the party of four are still quite a distance off.

I look closer at them. Two guys of more or less the same height. Identical colour of skin and hair. Only small difference of its length. Must be brothers or something. They have the standard simple leather armour with blue emblem. Weapons on the other hand are quite different. The one closer to me has two handed mace, while the one further has spear. Both can prove deadly to me. One by crushing the bones and the second by pinning me to single spot.

Do I take them on, or do I leave them for kite-lady? Hmm… I guess she could do the trick… but I doubt those guys will allow me to pass by them without trying something. If they show an opening I will not be so generous as to leave it be.

Surprisingly, the mace guy is not waiting for his brother and keeps on running in my direction. I assumed they will work together, but with this I will have more of a chance.

I doubt the trick I used on the axe beauty will work second time. So when the moment comes and he is close enough, instead of just slowing down, I stop altogether.

The stupid bastard just keeps on running. I jump sideways barely avoiding his mace, while he topples over from the momentum. One quick stab and his artery blood is gushing all over me. Damn I’m getting red again.

The flail guy is almost atop me. Wasn’t he supposed to herd me!? F***k!!! I should never assume anything!!

I don’t have time to get up so I use the corpse as a shield. The heavy impact and sound of wet smack reaches me when spiked balls hit the dead body. I’m practically bathing in the red stuff. Seven pits of hell! I try to stab at his leg but he rises it for a solid kick. The mace guy falls of me as the boot connects. I can move more freely now so I try for stab and a slash. I score a hit with both, but his chainmail blocks it perfectly. I’m already half way up, but the spiked balls are flying my way. I don’t have time.

Instead of trying to dodge I shot out my left hand. It gets shattered as it connects with the balls. Momentum broken, in place of hitting my skull, they fall harmlessly along his chainmail and my ribs. Here goes my arm again, damn it!

Not waiting to look what happened with my bones I jump to the side. As I expected the spearman was just behind me. There’s no way I would miss him with the continuous hysterical mad laugh he’s making. His spear buries itself into the ground. It passed between my lower spine and Flail man, missing me completely. If I had flesh I would be speared, but having no guts helped me out a bit.

I make quick jump back onto the slab of a nearby grave. The spear obstructed the armoured veteran so I have second or two to process things. Higher elevation also helps.

I’m f***ed!! Totally, royally f***ed!!! There’s no f***ing way I will survive this sh*t!! The armoured flail man is already passing the mad spearman. As I watch the kite lady is approaching fast, just two graves away behind them. Not far away, to the side, are the four lucky campers. The mage is already hard at work casting some kind of spell while the other three are going for me. Damn I’m popular these days.

At the feet of the crazy guy I see glimmer. My left hand is still holding the knife. That is what must have saved it from total destruction. It broken off at my forearm and even though I can clearly see cracks and breaks it’s still holding together in one piece. One lucky thing in the sea of madness.

…

…

As I’m watching, something unbelievable happens. I simply cannot believe my eyes. The blade emerges from the stomach of spiked balls freak! The kite-lady! She just backstabbed armoured guy!! What the f**k is going on here!?!? To hell with them, this is my chance!

I throw myself in their direction. My dash is taking me directly for the spearman, but all three are very close to each other. The spearman is still laughing loudly and bearing his weapon at me. I try to use my missing arm to slash the spearman on the ankles. But because it broke between elbow and wrist, the movement is small and award. Besides, I don’t have enough experience using it like that. Luckily the movement itself was enough to get his attention. In his surprise, he shifted the spear little bit, allowing me to brush past the tip and continue towards him. But the flails man, ignoring sword sticking out of his belly, swings the balls at me. This is madness!!! Complete madness!!

Dodge I made, has put the spear between me and the skewered madman. I let go of the knife and grab the shaft. Quick yanking motion puts the spear in the way of the balls. I am bit too slow, but the shaft was high enough to serve its purpose. The balls pass above it going in an arc, directly for my head, but the chain they are attached to catches on the spear. That alters the motion of the balls mere inches from my skull. F**k that was close! Dropping my grip on the spear I lurch for the man holding it. At least he stopped laughing.

The armour he is wearing is covering most of his body. The only area not covered by it, is the head and the top of the neck. I don’t have any weapons. But I do have my broken bones.

I stab my left arm deep into his throat. The two bones of my forearm enter his neck on both sides of his Adam’s apple, releasing fountain of blood. As the mad spearman topples over, I pick up my lost appendage and quickly right myself.

Glancing at the duo besides me, I see they are still in tight embrace. There’s nothing like true love, huh? He somehow managed to turn around with the blade still inside of him and is choking the kite-lady, with both hands. She on the other hand is using a knife to repeatedly stab him in the side, while trying to free her neck with the other. That is one tough love for you.

But there, just two rows away, are the three happy campers, with not so happy expressions. At least these guys do not look insane. Further in the distance is the mage, still hard at work on that spell.

Do I help the kite lady, or do I run for it?

Choices, choices.

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From author: - All comments much appreciated.

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