Wali watched in grim satisfaction as the troll threat was mitigated. Somehow Rags walked on through the flames untouched. He walked threateningly forward, kicking burning trolls out of his path with rooster-clawed feet. He passed the final line of burning patches of tar. Black smoke rose behind him as trolls screamed and died.
He paused three steps past the line and five to the ditch and surveyed the army arrayed against him. He laughed, and his voice projected across the entire field. “Clever elves, very clever. Today I will add your skins to my skirt.” he ran his hand through the flapping skins that hung around his waist. “Send me your heroes. Send me your generals to die before I take this city as my throne.”
A veritable tide of arrows was loosed at the six-meter-tall monster. He raised a hand, and a shimmering energy bubble formed around him. The arrows clattered harmlessly against the magical shield. Spells began to rain on him, and he stood there grinning as fireballs, lighting, and ice shards splashed harmlessly across the protective barrier. He laughed, and thunder rolled as cavalry charged at him from the flank.
They lowered their lances, and a full company of horses closed on him swiftly. Rags turned, and the sphere of protection dissipated. He spread his arms and lowered himself to accept the charge. Lances broke across his breastplate and sliced across his skin, but none did any actual harm. As the first rank passed, the monster reached out and scooped a knight from the saddle with a single hand.
The knight struggled against the vice grip of the monstrous fist. “Now you will see why they call me Skintaker!” Rags laughed as he touched a finger to the helmetless head of the knight. The shriek of pain stunned the watching army. As Rags pulled on the face of the knight with a pinch, the whole of the knight’s skin slid off of him. Rags threw down a bleeding and shrieking armor suit and held the knight's flayed skin. He carefully tucked the legs into his belt, and a fresh skin joined the others on his skirt. The flayed knight rolled around for a moment before an arrow struck him from the defenders, a mercy.
Rags turned back to the army at large, arms wide as he shouted, “Kneel before your new master! You can die here and now or live as my slaves!” The few cuts the charging knights had been able to inflict were already closing.
Marshal Elimon reached behind him, and a servant brought forward a huge greatsword in a long red leather sheath. He called to the herald, “Monster! I challenge you!”
Looking over the shaken army, the herald said, “Just you? Bring all your men. I do not fear mere mortal weapons.”
Wali watched the man go forward. The marshal mounted the berm and leaped over the ditch like it was nothing more than a small puddle. He stood tall and dragged the leather scabbard free of the greatsword. “For generations of elves, we have stood tall against the evils of this world. I am the product of millennia of elven swords mastery refined and distilled.” Elimon said. The blade that was revealed was more than a meter long, and runes swirled along the length of the blade. He whirled the sword around him in a complex move that Wali couldn’t follow.
As the marshal squared up against the herald, Wali and the companions advanced to the top of the berm. The Marshal raised the sword over his head, then turned and angled the blade toward the demon. The elf flashed forward at the monster, moving in a flash. The runes on the sword’s blade began to shine like the sun. The blade flashed forward, and the demon swatted it away. The marshal was a master of the blade. He turned the deflection into a spinning cut, keeping the demon on the defensive. The sword clashed against the demon’s claws, both hand and foot.
The pair broke apart for a moment, “You are quite good, but it will not be enough to defeat me.” Sneered Rags.
“We shall see.” Said Elimon, his tone stern.
A trio of mages gained the top of the platform next to Wali and Elimon shot them a glance. Each of the three began chanting a separate spell. Runed circles burned around the feet of each of them.
Wali looked at Vinny, Yacob, and Sas’cha. Each had a determined look on their face. This was the opening salvo in the war against the Demon Lords. A preliminary look at the power of the caretakers who had fallen and betrayed their creators.
Vinny had set his pack down on the ground before himself and rummaged through the contents. He drew out a trio of potions, setting them in front of himself. He took up his bow and readied an arrow, holding it ready but not drawn with the knuckles of his left hand.
Yacob had transformed himself into his stone-fleshed form. He crouched, ready to leap. Sas’cha was in a similar position beside him. Both waited for a signal, some trigger to join the fight with the demon.
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Wali considered an array of options and slowly began to build a spell. He relied heavily on his glyphs and the natural skills they enabled. He sent Tag out to circulate the battle in the air, and Noodle slithered along the ground. Both unseen but moving in a particular pattern.
Elimon and the Skintaker closed again. The flashing blade drew a searing cut across the knee of the demon, who responded by backhanding the marshal. The marshal was sent flying but recovered and landed in a crouch. He charged forward again, feinting a lunge but sliding it into a rolling slash. The demon smashed down at the blade, now more aggressive than before. They clashed for a time, the marshal raising a few more shallow slices on the demon’s skin. These did not close, and the black blood soon slicked across Rags’ skin. The Marshal was wounded more than once. He avoided the skin taking fingertips, but the toe talons shredded his thigh. The silvery armor of the elves was nothing more than paper to the demon’s strength.
The trio of mages acted as the marshal rolled away from the demon’s leg, gushing blood. A barrier surrounded the demon, cast by one. A wall of light flashed upwards between them. The third launched a healing spell at the marshal. Skintaker reacted quickly. He smashed through the barrier and ignored the wall of light. He stomped down at the marshal with a talon, the healing taking hold as the claw shredded the other leg.
The three mages slumped to the ground, mana expenditure and backlash from broken magics doing for them. Vinny threw a vial at the marshal and swiftly followed it with an arrow. The arrow struck the slower-moving vial, which shattered over the marshal, spraying a powerful healing potion over the elf. His wounds began to close as the demon turned his head and looked at the interlopers on the berm.
The marshal took the distraction and rolled away from the demon. Elimon stood and swayed, but the sword never wavered. Wali said one word, “Now.” Yacob and Sas’cha leaped across the ditch and sprinted toward the battle. Flames licked across Yacob as he drew power from the bracer at his wrist. Sas’cha shed her humanoid form as she leaped. She landed as a massive black panther. The marshal took this moment to charge at the demon again.
Wali poured mana through himself and into his totems. The spell he had been weaving was now ready and the air rippled around the marshal and Rags. Noodle disappeared, but Wali kept Tag circling the fight, working as the unseen anchor of the magic.
As the marshal and demon clashed again, the marshal was again outmatched. The marshal had more than a slight advantage in skill and quickness, but the demon’s strength and toughness won out again. Again the marshal was flung away. That was when the monster noticed the spell. As the Marshal flew out of the circle, he disappeared from the demon’s view.
Wali had woven a one-way curtain of illusion in a bubble around the fight. The effect was centered on Tag, out of arm reach above the demon. Those inside the bubble of illusion could see only the inside wall of the bubble, which showed a loop of the battlefield. The soldiers on the berm moved and shouted. The still-burning corpses of trolls twitched and scrabbled as they had before. The active participants outside the bubble, Yacob, Wali, Vinny, and Sas’cha, could not be detected outside of that bubble.
Yacob turned as he charged, swinging wide to the demon’s side. Sas’cha pounced at the nightmare, which was as large as she. Rags turned to react a moment too late as Sas’cha moved past him. Her claws slashed deep gouges into the side of the demon’s knee. Skintaker staggered as she flashed past him. Yacob smashed his hands into the ground, a ripple of power flowing from him toward the demon. Elimon lunged forward, appearing suddenly in the demon’s senses. The point of the greatsword pierced a clawed hand that moved to defend, taking a finger off the demon as the sword swept away.
Rags stepped toward Elimon to pursue with a roar of pain. Black ichor spurted from his hand as he stepped forward—his foot sunk into the ground up to the knee. Yacob grunted, and the ground hardened around the chicken foot. Smoke began to rise around it as Rags tried to pull his foot free. With a grunt, the demon ripped its foot free of the pool of lava Yacob had formed. Smoking molten stone dripped from the foot, and flesh sloughed away from the ruined talons.
Sas’cha had turned and circled. She pounced again. Landing with all four murder mittens on the back of the demon, She bit into its neck and raked massive gouges from its back. Marshal Elimon rushed forward as Rags turned to try and shake the monstrous cat from its back. The runes on the greatsword blazed as he swung in a broad flat arc. The army cheered as the unburnt knee was bisected. Rags fell forward as the marshal’s momentum carried him past the demon’s falling form.
Rags bellowed, and a pulse of magic force blasted the bubble of illusion away. Wali staggered as his spell was forcefully dispelled, and a power backlash slammed into him. On his belly, the demon reached back with one arm and ripped a bed-sized sheet of flesh from Sas’cha. Howling, she leaped away. Yacob formed another pool of lava below the hand that supported the demon as it tried to push up to its knees. The monster splashed forward to the shoulder with a howl of fury. Yacob instantly released the heat and solidified the stone. Trapped to the shoulder, Rags tried pushing up and out of the encapsulating stone.
Marshal Elimon took this opportunity to rush forward again. This time the sword swung down in a long overhead swing. The blow took the demon in the back of the neck. With a grunt, the demon fell limp. Two more chops and the head of the demon rolled free. The army began to cheer but froze mid-breath as the demon’s body swirled up and away in black ash and smoke.
The voice of Rags the Skintaker, Herald of Gavo, rang out across the battlefield, “I will return for my vengeance!” as the smoke flew up into the night sky. Silence held for a moment as everyone held their breath.