“W-what is that?!” Celeste shouted, quickly rushing over to me to stand with her sword raised and pointed in the direction of the things getting closer to us.
I also froze when I caught a glance of what was getting closer. A group of racketing skeletons was swaying this way. A lot of them had battered and torn armor, with some of them not even wearing anything at all besides the things that they carried in their hands, which were all mostly rusty or damaged weapons.
The scariest thing about them was the glow in their eye sockets… an eerie red glow that was amplified by the erratic spasming of their bodies.
“W-we should get out of here!” I loudly said and grabbed on to Celeste’s arm to run away.
There was no way for a couple of young girls without any proper training in either magic or combat to beat a group of monsters like that.
However, Celeste resisted my pull, staying in place with the same stance. I looked with widened eyes at her and wondered if she was perhaps frozen in place too, in which case, I would either have to shout at her to run, or carry her to safety…
“We’re not running away,” she said as I was opening my mouth to call her attention, “This is close to your home—to the village. If we run away now, then they’re going to rush into your home, kill everything there and then keep doing the same to every house that is in their way until everyone we know and care about is dead.”
“What?!” I exclaimed in response. “No! That’s nonsense! We can run away, warn everyone, and have everyone ready to fight together! I—I can even ask my mom to fight, she’s not weak at all!”
Once I said that, I pulled her and tried to bring her with me back to warn everyone, but with one hard shake of her arm, she forced me to let go of her.
“What are you—”
“I’m not running away,” Celeste interrupted, her face serious. “That is not what a Holy Knight would do. A Holy Knight would stay and fight; would give it all to ensure that no harm got close to normal people.” Her grip over the weapon tightened as she took a step forward. “I’ll deal with this.”
“B-but—”
“Ahhhhhhh!” she shouted, and before I could refute her to try to convince her that this was a bad idea, she rushed ahead, weapon ready at the side.
I didn’t know what to do as I fidgeted forward and back, going from taking a step back to run away and call for help, and taking a step forward to try to help her. My magic could be of use here, but at best I just hunted small animals in the wild. I had never fought against something like this, and just the appearance of those monsters caused my knees to shake.
However, it seemed like none of those things were going through Celeste’s head, as she immediately jumped into the first skeleton; one that was wearing no armor or clothes and just slowly lifted the rusted sword in its hand to block. The monster was too slow, and with a powerful shout, she cut the skeleton in half, sending bones flying to the side.
Another skeleton turned to look at her, this one with a half-broken axe, moving her way while slowly lifting the axe up. Celeste sharply turned to look at it, and with a powerful vertical swing, she split the skeleton’s skull open, causing it to fall to the ground in a pile of bones.
She turned a confident smile my way. “See?! We can do this!”
Seeing the confidence with which she did this, I took a hesitant step forward. My worries were telling me not to fall to the ground, since that would leave me open to an attack, so I carefully looked at the path I was going to take. My mind was telling me to make sure not to drop the axe, so my grip over the makeshift weapon increased, and I could even hear the wood creak under my fingers.
“Ha!” Celeste shouted, and another skeleton was sent flying in a pile of bones.
There were still a lot of skeletons left, even after the few that she easily took down, but maybe… just maybe… we might be able to take them all down.
After taking a deep breath, I also started running to join her. I wasn’t quite as fast as Celeste was, so in the time I took to get to her, she split another skeleton by swinging to the side in a wide horizontal arc, and then hit another one by striking it directly at the head. Both of those crumbled just as easily, so I turned my attention to one that just turned its attention to Celeste; one that had a tattered leather armor with a broken wooden shield and a broken sword that only had the lower half.
It noticed me and instead turned its red eyes my way. I hesitated when it looked at me as terror filled me when my gaze fell into the void surrounding the dangerous red light in its eyes. I stopped a couple of steps away, my legs shaking and my body already leaning back to run away.
“Althea!” Celeste shouted, but I couldn’t look away from the red eyes. “Swing at it! Shoot it with magic! Do something, for Gods’ sake!”
The skeleton slowly lifted its bony arm, and the light from the sun glinted off the broken sword, right at my eyes. I blinked from the slight blinding light, and in the moment that I did, I came back to my senses. If I didn’t act, the monster was going to kill me.
With widened eyes and a terrified shout, I lifted the axe over my head and swung it down with as much strength as I could muster. The skeleton’s head exploded in a mess of yellowish-white powder and shards of bones from the skull flew everywhere. I looked at it for a moment as the body stayed bent down with the arm raised, after which it crumbled down in a pile of bones—just like every other skeleton that Celeste had taken down.
“Yaahoo!” Celeste excitedly shouted, “See? It’s easy! We can defeat this bunch and then go back to tell everyone how we saved them from skeletons getting close! This… is going to get me closer to becoming a Holy Knight…!”
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“R-right…” I followed up with my gaze down at the pile of bones I created.
Perhaps she was right. Maybe we could do this…
I turned my eyes to look at every other skeleton still slowly walking out of the woods. They looked not too different, and just hearing Celeste shout as she bravely cut down every skeleton that got close to her, caused me to feel like I could do this too, and I might just be able to use magic as well.
As I set my eyes on the next skeleton I should fight—one that was wearing tattered clothes and a small knife in its hand—an usual metallic clank came from where Celeste was fighting and I turned to look at her. One of the skeletons had managed to block her sword with a small metallic shield.
“What the—you shouldn’t have blocked that! You should’ve let me—”
Without a response, the skeleton bashed its shield and Celeste was forced to take a step back away from the skeleton. It then quickly followed up by swinging the sword on its other hand. This one was much faster than the ones that she had cut down so far, and with widened eyes, I saw how the blade was about to cut Celeste.
She reacted in time and managed to block the incoming attack with her sword, but she grunted and was pushed to the side from the strength with which the blade hit her.
“Celeste!” I shouted, almost ignoring the skeleton that was getting closer to me, who was pulling the knife back to the side and was about to stab me.
Like Celeste, I also reacted by using the axe to block. I wasn’t ready for something like that, so when the knife was getting closer to me, I unwillingly closed my eyes shut and hoped that the knife would hit the axe. There was a sound of the knife hitting wood, and a strong push following it, caused me to stumble backwards and trip over a tree root behind me.
I fell on my butt, and the pain from that caused me to open my eyes and see what happened. The skeleton’s knife was stuck in my axe’s wood along with half an arm from the skeleton. I panicked and dropped the axe to the ground, but then realized the grave mistake of letting go of one’s weapon. Though… I didn’t want to touch the bone that was still gripping onto the knife.
Another clanking sound from metal hitting metal came from Celeste’s side and I turned once more to see what happened. Celeste had attacked, but the skeleton blocked again. She wasn’t pushed back this time and simply chose to kick, causing the skeleton to stumble backwards, similarly to me, only that it didn’t fall down.
However, it was wide open, and in that moment, Celeste managed to slash it with a vertical swing of her sword, splitting the skeleton’s head in half, and causing it to crumble just the same as every other skeleton.
Once she was sure that the skeleton was down, she turned to look at me, only to widen her eyes. “What are you doing, Althea!? Pick up your weapon!”
I reacted and turned to look at the fallen axe, only to have the skeleton I was facing, standing not even a step away from me. I didn’t even have the time to be surprised as it lunged on top of me, grabbing me by the throat as we both fell to the ground.
I grabbed on to the bony arm that was gripping my throat and struggled to get it off me. The strength of the skeleton was higher than I expected, and my lack of training in anything related to this was making it hard for me to even get the body off me.
“Althea!” Celeste shouted, and I heard her coming closer, only to suddenly stop herself with a yelp. “Get out of the way you stupid piles of bones!”
Once more, I heard the sound of weapons clashing, and in my struggle, I managed to look over at Celeste. She was surrounded by three skeletons. These ones looked slightly different, as they were all dressed in proper armors, and their weapons, while having the scratches of usage, looked in much better conditions than the ones that we fought before. There was one skeleton in particular that caught my attention. It had horns on top of its head.
Celeste quickly attacked with her sword, but the skeleton with the horns blocked without even losing any ground. She tried one, two, three times, but the skeleton nimbly managed to parry each one of her attacks.
It was while being focused on the horned skeleton that the other two skeletons moved around Celeste. I wanted to shout to warn her, but my voice was being suppressed by the hand in my throat, so all I could do was watch as one of those skeletons stabbed her in the back with a spear, which managed to pierce right through the middle of her stomach.
I nearly passed out from seeing that happen, and in that moment, I realized that if I didn’t do something; that if I didn’t get this skeleton off me; there was not going to be a way out of this.
I focused my strength on the bony arm holding me, and slowly, I managed to rip the hand off me, but at the same time, Celeste was struck across the chest by the horned skeleton’s sword, causing her to fall down to the ground.
“No!” I shouted with a hoarse voice, and looked for anything within me; for that supposed powerful magic that I had.
I needed something—anything—that could save us! Something that could cleanse that demonic skeleton and make those skeletons disappear!
“Child…” a woman’s soft voice called out to me from somewhere, and a strange blissful feeling filled me. “Can you hear me…?”
I could hear that melodic voice, but I didn’t know where the owner of that voice was. It didn’t matter, what was important was that we needed help. “Yes! Please, whoever you are, please help us!”
“I cannot.” the woman said, and there was a moment of silence, a moment in which the other three skeletons got closer to the fallen Celeste. “However. There might be a way. Let me aid you. I’m sending you some of my Holy Power.”
After she said that, a blissful feeling filled my body once more, like a warm light. I closed my eyes and searched for that supposed Holy Power. I quickly sensed what felt like a bright golden light within my body, and without a second thought, I reached for it.
I sharply opened my eyes, and as I used what little I knew about magic, I pushed that power out of my body. A blinding golden light exploded from my body, turning the skeleton that was still struggling on top of me to ashes, and allowing me to finally get my bearings as I scrambled to reach for the fallen axe.
With a swift movement, I took the axe and turned it to the three skeletons surrounding Celeste. With that power still burning around my body, I ran their way. The skeletons turned to look at me, but I swinged my axe wildly, trying to imitate the way that Celeste fought.
The horned skeleton raised its weapon to block me, but with that golden light surrounding my axe, the skeleton’s weapon was turned to pieces and I was able to continue swinging, hitting the skeleton as many times as I could until it was nothing more than another pile of bones.
I continued doing the same with the rest of the skeletons, running and rushing in every direction to get rid of as many of those monsters as I could, leaving just piles of bones and dust behind me.
Eventually, there were no more of those skeletons, and once I was done, with urgent steps, I ran to where Celeste had fallen.
“Celeste!” I shouted, and dropped to my knees next to her. “Celeste! We’re done here. We got rid of all of the skeletons! We can go back now…!”
Her eyes were half-closed, but they wouldn’t turn to look at me, and her mouth was slightly opened with a trail of blood falling to the side and to the ground under her, pooling with the rest of the blood that came out of the wounds she suffered before.
I grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her. But there was no response. Her eyes still looked up and into nothing. “Celeste…? No…!”
Tears started falling down the side of my face, and I couldn’t help but keel over her chest, my hands clenched into fists and the anger towards the monsters that did this to her boiling over as hot as it could, but…
But there was as much anger directed at me, as things could’ve gone better if only I had acted sooner; if only I was stronger; if only…
No… I had to be better.