“Dive!” cried the commander, and a sea of gleaming armor and winged helmets crashed into the wave of undead. The skeletal light infantry, known as Levi, were lightly armored, if at all. The Levi that emerged from the bushes were a motley bunch. All held weapons of one kind or another, some wore chest plates and grieves, while others lacked even pants. Some held small solid shields of iron, others held shields so full of holes that they might as well not have been there. Generally, the Levi were used to plug holes in the lines of Gravibi, the heavy skeletal infantry, which may open up, or they served as the advance guard to tire the living soldiers.
Franco watched as the knights trampled the first five ranks of the Levi, then turned to retreat and reform the lines for another charge. More Levi emerged from the bushes, followed by Sagittai, the undead archers. The Sagittai wore quivers on their backs, filled with arrows with obsidian tips and black fletching. From their belts hung shortswords or hunting knives, and they carried different bows. Some held short bows, some held crossbows, and some held longbows, the bane of knights.
Seeing the longbows, the knights tried for one more dive, sending nearly one hundred damned souls back to hell, then the commander blew the horn that signaled an orderly retreat. Having been drilled on this, Franco and his companions turned to regroup with the knights at a small ridge fifty yards behind their current position.
Suddenly, dark vines encircled Franco’s ankles and he fell to the ground. The cry of the knights’ horses told Franco they had also been trapped, and the thuds and curses of the unseated knights rang throughout the night. A skeletal mage emerged, sitting crosslegged upon a purple disk of magic. It wore tattered purple robes, a crown of thorns sat atop his head, and in his hands he held a short scepter. The scepter was a short thing, about two feet long, with a hollow ball on one end. Inside the ball was a tiny skeletal head wreathed in green flames that fluttered around its cage, and was the source of the scepter’s power. Seeing how Levi and Sagittai ringed the mage, the mage was the leader of this hellish unit.
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As he stood, Franco saw the mage raise his left hand, the one without the scepter, and drop it quickly, and the Sagittai loosed a volley of arrows that rained down upon the knights. One of the arrows struck Franco in the chest and he fell to his knees. As the pain flared in his chest, Franco raised his head to the sky and roared. This roar was a primal thing, and as Franco roared, he felt a mysterious power well up in his chest. It filled the space behind his eyes and gathered just behind his throat, and as he continued his roar, it exploded out, and a beam of light so bright it turned night to day shot out of his mouth towards the heavens.
Alex thought his eyes deceived him as he saw his best friend take an arrow in the chest and fall, only to have his entire eyes replaced by gold light, and for a beam of the stuff to shoot into the night sky. Alex felt his fatigue and pain fade away as the light touched him, and, looking past Franco, saw that the Levi caught in the light was smote into dust.
Hurriedly, the mage cried some words in the language of hell, and it and the remaining warriors turned to flee back into the underbrush. Soon the sound of demonic chanting filled the air, and a ghastly turquoise glow flickered out between the leaves of the bushes. The mage was summoning something, and that thing had answered the call.