Arrows rained down, unseen and deadly in the dark. The camp’s torchlight backlit the anchors plucking their strings while their victims carried a horrible melody.
Oliver fought to stay in the saddle on a rise overlooking the enemy camp. The knights clustered around him, and he had to yell for them to get back.
Twice, an arrow whizzed so close it was like a bee in his ear. He could raise a shield, but he wouldn’t have to if he attacked.
The knights and their horses snorted and shifted anxiously. They were protected, but the infantry suffered the arrows. Though, one arrow found its way through the face slits of a heavily armored man, and he topped from his mount and flopped around in pain.
“Oliver. Now would be the time,” Sir Gillian said, holding his shield against the deadly rain.
Oliver steeled himself. The idea of what he needed to do hit him. The camp was filled with living, breathing people. Nevertheless, he lifted a hand, letting cosmic energy gather.
From below, distant shouts reached them as soldiers rallied. Those with bows readied another volley.
“Yes,” said Sir Edmund. “If you have magic, man, use it. If not, I will call a retreat.”
Sir Gillian studied Oliver’s face. “Emrich is burning villages. He kills and plunders not for glory but for the elves. If you can stop it, it’s your duty.”
With a deep breath, Oliver raised his swordstaff to the sky. The runes on its blade glimmered. Star Beam.
A line of pure brilliance shot downward. The land about him was gone under the glare. In a heartbeat, the beam struck straight through the heart of the enemy camp.
Tents and supply wagons erupted in flame and debris. Shouts turned to screams, men diving for cover. A dust and sparks billowed into the air, blotting the hillside in swirling ash.
Oliver sent another beam slicing into the camp. The deed was done. The afterimages faded until he could see into the night once again.
A notification sounded, but he didn’t look.
Sir Edmund, pointing. “Brilliant! Their lines are in disarray. Charge.”
Oliver spurred his horse forward, but everyone passed him, even those on foot, until he rode at the rear.
The charred bodies of the archers lay in blackened heaps. Skulls screamed from the husk of faces.
His chest constricted at the devastation he had wrought. He tasted bile in his throat.
They were NPCs. They’d respawn in another game world soon. Perhaps Eldrin would know more about their lifecycle. He’d have to ask him.
The knights thundered into the camp and bloodied their lances. Some switched to their sidearms of maces or swords and swung away in a mad furry.
He forced himself to follow, though he wanted to desert.
His allies swept in, dust rolling with them, kicked up from a fallow field. Figures in melted armor staggered among campfires and collapsed tents and weapon racks.
His blade slashed a startled archer, sending the man spinning to the ground.
Sir Gillian lost his horse and fought with a large shield and sword. He backed away from a line of pikes.
Sir Edmund crashed into the formation from the flank and scattered them. He circled, guiding his mount through smoking ruins, hacking at scattered foes.
“With me,” Sir Gillian said and turned a pike away with his shield, but he couldn’t get close enough to strike back.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
Another pikeman closed from the side.
Oliver joined him. The swordstaff was not as long as the pike, but in his hands, it danced.
Together, they disbanded the heavy infantry.
Fires overtook the sea of tents at the center of the camp. Some abandoned the fight to get away from the heat.
Smoke stung Oliver’s eyes. He coughed into the crook of his elbow and blinked back his watery vision.
The enemy banner flapped at the center of the camp from a large pavilion. Soldiers in black coats with silver moons rallied around it.
Oliver saw what he’d been told about but hadn’t believed, or at least hadn’t tried to wrap his head around.
Two white gloves floated above the ground as if worn by an invisible man. They unfurled a scroll, and a voice rang out from the parchment. “I, Emrich, claim your lands in the name of the Malarite Crown. Your resistance only brings suffering upon your people.”
Emrich’s gloves moved in sleight of hand and made the scroll vanish. Then, the fingers seemed to make sign language gestures. Three swords lifted from a nearby rack and glided forward.
Oliver parried a slice with a metallic clang, stumbling from the force and odd angle. The gloves flashed, and they yanked his swordstaff sideways with an invisible hand at a shocking speed. He forced a blade aside, trying to get close to the gloves, but with three blades flying around, spinning, the chances were stacked against him. He clenched his jaw, star energy thrumming in his hand, but he had nothing for such a tiny target.
A strong enough strike chipped a flying sword and made it veer away. It was as if the blade were dizzy. With that, he didn’t try to fence with them any longer but batter them into submission.
Meanwhile, Sir Gillian and the knights engaged the remains of moon soldiers. Those on horseback broke their lines and sent them into chaos while the others cut them down.
Oliver battered away the last of the swords. The gloves gathered a fireball between them, but before unleashing the flames, he shot forward and stuck them with the staff side of his weapon.
The white gloves fell and lay like normal cloth in the dirt.
He swiped them up and stuffed them in his pocket.
Soon, the whole camp lay in ruins, tents smoldering, wounded men calling for help. The battle was over, and the looting began.
He returned to the friendly camp and tried to sleep but couldn’t. His companions had abstained from the battle.
Owen said it was his right to kill elf friends and said no more that night.
Morning light unveiled the battlefield’s grim truth; the Star Beam melted the bodies of at least a hundred. Smoke rose from burnt wagons, forming thin columns in the grayish sky. Oliver walked among the carnage.
Knights sat around fires roasting the meat they’d found in the supplies.
Hunter walked at his side. “At least in this world, we don’t have to eat our enemy. But I have no problem eating their food. Let’s join them.”
“That’s okay,” Oliver said. “Go on without me. I’m not hungry.”
“Suit yourself.”
His companions followed him. They should have eaten.
Halfdan picked up a double-bladed axe. “The first battle is the hardest. You’ll think about everything you did wrong until you get another chance to do it right.”
“I don’t know what I could have done differently, but it still feels wrong, like my heart sank and it’ll never come up again.”
“You’re like an innocent,” Halfdan said. “Trapped in a body purposed for killing.”
Saj stared at a mangled corpse. “The mind and body can’t remain in such conflict. Something has to give.”
Charity wiped her eyes. “Maybe you don’t have to use your magic like this. What if you just showed your power and let them surrender?”
“No,” Halfdan said. “He will not be able to tell the strength of his opponent. If they’d had wizards or creatures, and he hadn’t acted decisively, he could have got his own killed.”
“Perhaps a show of force would sometimes work,” Oliver agreed. “I tried to leave my friends behind so I wouldn’t harm them, but that didn’t work. Maybe I just need to be smarter.”
Halfdan turned the new axe in his hand. “Perhaps, but hesitate at the wrong moment, and the price may be higher than you’re willing to pay.”
“This is more than I’m willing to pay.”
A woman with ragged clothes and a child clinging to her stepped out of the woods a quarter mile away. A few more stepped out, then more still. Families, old folks, mothers with babes in arms, even a few farmers with carts.
Soldiers rode out and guided them around the battlefield and to the camp.
Oliver and company followed and watched a few break off from the group to gather at the main pavilion. He entered behind them and stood at the table while they waited for Sir Edmund.
The interior of the tent warmed up as the sun rose higher.
Oliver couldn’t see his breath any longer.
When everyone was ready, an old woman spoke. Her mouth looked like a sinkhole. “They’re right behind us. They burned the villages and towns. I raised a whole graveyard, and it slowed them down, but they have an elf with them who can turn away the dead.”
A man nodded beside her. “It’s the main part of their force. At least three thousand of them.”
Sir Edmund looked at the strategy table. “Then we’ll have to move like the wind.”