Paul Ellsworth- Captain of the vindictive force
A scene of madness, simply unbelievable that this had transitioned from a scene of proper order, power and peace.
I had been delighted when ex-General Stine had ordered me to head this force, as it represented to all who lusted his position that he had chosen me to be his successor. It meant that I would soon inherit his position as head of forces in Rossford, the leading town in the region, and even better; it meant that I had a chance to be recommended to his past comrades if I shined enough. It made perfect sense as my quick wit in warfare had quickly set me apart from others in training and even now from the other Captains of the Guard. All in all, it was my ticket for greatness, the first step that would be recorded down in my legacy as the move that would quickly rise me to become the 3rd GLORY in the kingdom.
So someone explain to me why the fuck this was happening?!
We were meant to be the vindictive force who would clear the bandits who had recently began targeting our patrols as the fat cats to rob. And yet the villains in front of me most definitely were not bandits, nor humans, nor alive for that matter. The fact they were dead should have been the end to the problem, and yet right now it seemed to be the root of the problem.
What had ambushed us along the route were skeletons. As if to taunt us, they wore the gear of our dead brothers. The skeletons themselves were in extremely bad quality, some were fractured while others looked as if they were crumbling away. And yet that attested to the fact that they clearly had been reinforced by magic, else they would have just broken down right in front of us. Well that and the fact that they were moving with a motive. Some held our shields, only in much worse quality as most were dented and showed clear weathering of recent battle. The paint showing the insignia of the Rossford Guard had been scratched and smashed. Some wore metal caps while others were fashioned with metal greaves and hard soled boots.
Upon a second look, I could see only the skeletons at the front wore Armor as the ones at the back of their company were not human skeletons. Some had smaller statures while others had completely different anatomy shape, such as those of wild cats. They looked older, more broken down and a lot dirtier, stained dark with mud and blood.
Any fool could figure out from the clues but mostly common sense that these weren’t just random pillaging bandit skeletons, which meaning that the enemy had a person with skills in dark arts or worse, in necromancy. The cleaner skeletons upfront wearing our Armor for protection were most likely the skeletons of my dead comrades, while the ones at the back were most likely the ones the villain had used to kill my comrades with.
Sadly it looked like my former brothers were only too eager to start fighting and I immediately stopped my wandering thoughts. I needed to figure out whether these skeletons were created through necromancy or controlled through dark arts, because while both had the similar end results of skeleton warriors, their weaknesses and strengths were different.
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John - Apprentice Shield-bearer of the vindictive force
I squirmed as I saw walking, armed skeletons in front of us, clearly showing hostility and eagerness for battle. Worse still, some wore our Armor, basically identifying this force as the one who attacked our patrols, which only meant that we could not run from this battle. I didn't want to show fear but my body betrayed me in the worst of times as I began shaking, the sounds only amplified from my metal Armor clanging together. Though it seemed ok as I was in the safe due to the sounds of swords being drawn and shouts being shouted, blanketing the noise. I was only 18, the only reason why I was in Captain Paul company was due to excellent results in training. Only that was against human targets who I could predict and understand, these were eerie skeletons, the skeletons of the dead patrols: how do you even kill the dead in the first place? The men around me started shoving ways as some tried to push to the front, God knows why, but it was perfect as I used that force to push myself backwards while not looking like I was retreating. If I made it to the back, I had a chance to run if it started going wrong.
"ALL SHIELD-BEARERS TO THE FRONT. SET UP A DEFENSIVE LINE IMMEDIATLY!"
Shit.
Captain Ellsworth shout sounded like a death sentence... But I guess I couldn't run so I might as well try my luck, gamble my life, though the chance of winning nor the winnings themselves looked very appealing. Pushing my way to the front, I took the massive shield of my back and sheathed my sword. The shield itself was a double-handed tower shield which stood at a massive 1.4m and better still was the fact that it was about 13cm thick. This meant the chances of getting broken was extremly low but it didn't come without bad points. The shield was double-handed meaning I had to trust my life to the men around me and it weighed around 45kg and that was despite the fact that it was made out of magically reinforced wood instead of steel. It was essentially impractical in all but large collisions. And yet it seemed my saving grace here; as long as I lowered my body, my shield would protect my whole body.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
And yet it looked like the skeletons were too thirsty for bloody as they instantly charged, just before I had clenched onto the enarmes in prerperation.Gritting my teeth, I stood my ground as the pressure against the shield kept building up. It would have been just my luck if enemies had charged us with no formation what-so-ever and yet their numbers of around 100 compared to our 30 seemed to completly negate the rules of warfare. Worse still, I could hear their otherwordly shrill roars as they fearlessly pushed, with no concern whatsoever about their barely passable lives.
Shit. All thought stopped as I became solely reliant on the adrenaline rush and my training. Nevertheless it seemed quite to fall short compared to the pain I felt on both my back and my arms. My arms were about to snap, but just not before Captain Paul shouted the words for immediate retreat. Or not...
“PUSH!”
The second the Captain shouted, I felt the force of multiple men pushing together on my back.
“PUSH!”
Tears started to make their way out as the pain fully overcame my adrenaline.
“PUSH!”
And yet it seemed it wouldn’t stop as both sides kept pushing with all their might.
“PUSH!”
And yet when my brothers pushed me this time, I found no purchase on the skeletons to push. Instead it was as I fell, I saw that the skeleton line had suddenly jumped back in coordination. Coincidentally it was also then when I saw a shadow leap onto my body, just before feeling intense pain on the back of my neck which instantly dissipated but along with it went my life.
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Paul Ellsworth- Captain of the vindictive force
Unbeknownst to us, the skeletons was actually in a formation, only it was formed to give the initial impression of lack of order. The skeletons seemed harmonious in fact if you watched from a bird’s angle as you could tell that none of them actually stumbled at all over each other. But it was clear to me when they jumped in co-ordanation that someone was controlling them. I was 90% sure now that they were being controlled via dark arts as it was dark arts where someone controlled the skeletons while necromancy created barely sentient skeletons that would not be able to manage such teamwork.
It seemed as though, despite the loss of 3 shield-bearers out of the 8 due to the big cat skeletons leaping at the exact moment the shield bearers fell in order to rip apart their neck, it was also our saving grace as that exact teamwork told me exactly what I needed to know.
“PROTECTION OF LUCI, STRENGHT OF LUCI, AGILITY OF LUCI”
Light escaped my body as I began to shine a dark golden hue.
I quickly bellowed my 3 skills, it was the reason why ex-General Stine selected my as his successor despite my younger age compared to the other captains since I had the blessing of the God Luci. After all , while any wayward plebeian with enough training could create a skill, it was a whole different matter when someone had skills given by an actual God.
My shouts seem to have increased morale after the initial loss in morale due to our first causalities. My men knew I only activated my skills once I knew exactly what to due to their low active time-frames. With all my buffs activated, I contracted my legs and exploded into the air. While an ordinary man could jump around 50cm of the ground, I could achieve 2m with just my body from a stationary stance which became a massive 4m when combined with the buffs.
Time seemed to slow as my feet floated above the shield bearers and finally over the skeletons. The wind seemed to single onto me as I unsheathed my sword, an amazing 2 times magically enhanced sword. It had dark golden handle that smoothed off into a pure gold line that fell down the crest of the sword. The whole sword gave off golden light, which amped up as I injected more mana into it, turning into the Sun coming down onto Earth. Time seemed to slow as my feet reached their destination: the skull of a skeleton, which I smashed through before rolling across the ground. Others might have been scared when surrounded by so many deadly monsters and yet I felt it was natural for one with power like me to be doing this. I clenched my sword as I did a wide slash to the right, releasing a wave of mana. The golden arc released smashed into 6 skeletons, slicing them in two before moving onto the next group of skeletons.
I shouted out “MEN GO FOR BIG STRIKES” as I continued my onslaught. The reason why dark arts users could control skeletons was because they maintained connection with the skeletons themselves. Since they controlled the skeletons themselves instead of giving them life, this meant that the dead skeletons had sensitivity, which in turn meant a portion of the pain a human would feel from an attack would be felt by the dark arts mage if the skeletons were attacked. Despite being a portion, it was enough as big attacks made it so that low level mages could not take in all that pain as they would instinctively break their link with the skeleton to stop the pain being transmitted over.
It was no surprise that the skeletons struck down stayed down; they became simple skeletons due to the released links. My men, upon seeing I had cleared around 20 of the skeletons in an instant, instantly regained their whole morale as they began to release big attacks while roaring.
And yet all seemed to go wrong as behind my men came an even louder, more fearsome, guttural roar…
This is where the story went wrong.
I was meant to clear all these skeletons, find their source who I would capture and take to Roswell for public execution. Ex-General Stine would promote me to Major and set me as the head of Roswell Guard after seeing my capability, knowing that he can rest easy now that someone of my standards came through.
My world that had shone golden immediately came to an abrupt end. Around me were the bones of around 50 skeletons, enough to change the battle around even by the strictest standards. And yet my face was filled with anger, humiliation and just the tinge of fear as the body of my strongest Lieutenant broke mortal limits and flew over me. What followed him was his entrails and a flood of blood that sprinkled onto us like a light, warm drizzle.
Something had launched the second strongest in my force through the sky for about 12 meters with a hit…
Reality dawned on me very quick as I began to run back to my men. I heard the guttural roar once more and screams of my men for the first time since forever. I feared with my whole body that I would see another flying corpse of another brother but it seems as if Lady Luck decided to shine on me for all my good deeds. Instead of facing the caved in body of another Lieutenant, all I saw was the dirty ground.
I had tripped due to fear. Shit. My ankle was in pain as I tried to get up but I didn’t care as I kept pushing. I had a responsibility to my men as their Captain, I would protect them and they would praise me. I would clear this mission and Stine would fucking promote me. I would keep advancing up the motherfucking world as people realised how fucking amazing I was compared to their shitty selves. But it seemed the world wasn’t a place of justice since I felt the pain increase. A low yelp escaped my mouth as I gritted my teeth, but they instantly opened into a beastlike scream. In front of me the skeleton I had cut down had re-arranged his backbone and stood back up. He looked worse than ever and yet he frightened me so much. I turned my head, only to find out I hadn’t tripped up and instead was held down by a dirty, bony hand. It was clenched around my ankle, but I could still move.
But I didn’t.
I couldn’t…
Around me all the cut down skeletons were standing back up and picking up their weapons and their skeleton body parts. My body seemed to be no longer mine as I lost all sense of it. It was like I was outside my body. The cold spread to my mind making thought stop.
I could hear screams around me, screams I would have attributed to my brothers if I could have thought, and yet my mind couldn’t. My pants felt sickeningly warm and wet…
If only I could think, I might have said something witty like “Ha-ha, I guess I won’t be getting a legacy after all”.
But I couldn’t.
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