The battle of Cruri

The clash began.

Out of the dark under the white moss trees they came. The Undead. Walking bog people. They walked seemingly without purpose, certainly without coordination, each on their own, but they did not walk blindly, avoiding the fires placed in the forest with ease.

Sir Rolande and his retinue was on the right flank, between the Trakorians and the White Berets. They kept their position in front of the friendly forces, to protect them from the coming onslaught and maybe defeat the enemy commanders before the battle even began.

The White Moss trees impeded the enemy. They could not swarm their foes, but had engage them a few at a time, and Tindri made their approach even harder by ensnaring the attacking bog people in her magic vines, which sprang up from the ground and blocked the way for those Undead marching up from behind.

Before Sir Rolande could even engage the enemy, he heard the sweet whispers of the sword Ebharing on his back. Only with a great effort of will, he managed to take the sword off and throw it behind the lines of troops.

Thus distracted, he could not help Albrich when the dwarf faced one of the Undead commanders, distinguished from the rank and file by a helmet with an animal head mounted. It was a formidable warrior, insanely strong. It struck Albrich only once in the chest with its sabre, but that was enough to send the dwarf sprawling to the ground, gasping for breath. He saw stars and all he could do was crawl back to the lines where Trakorian soldiers helped him get into safety.

Tindri rushed to him and used her magic to get him back on his feet. He went right back into the battle, right next to Rolande. Together, they managed to hold the line at least for a while. Undead commanders assailed them. They hewed and hewed at their enemies. First an arm would be chopped off, and then a leg. At last, when they were entirely dismembered, they were at least slowed down.

In a lull of the fighting, the Colonel came to their side, asking about the enemy's performance. Sir Roland told him that the bog people were clearly trying to get Ebharing. da Kaelve concluded that in that case, the sword must be defended.

For now, the lines held. The Undead did not form a shieldwall of their own, but attacked one by one, as individuals. That gave the disciplined soldiers a chance to gang up on the single skeletons coming to their line. However, the Undead kept coming, and the pressure mounted on the line. Little by little, the soldiers had to reform and hold the shieldwall against advancing tide.

The Marjurans buckled first. Unlike the fast and agile White Berets, or the hardened and well-trained Trakorian regulars, the local militia had no experience of war, and were now facing a terrifying foe. For a while, the steely-eyed Hildur managed to keep them fighting, but they took horrendous losses, and soon enough their formation buckled and wavered.

Seeing what was about to happen, Albrich and Sir Rolande rushed to that flank, grabbing panicked Arhemites on the way and shoving them back into the line. Seeing the bravery and ferocity of these two foreign warriors gave the locals new courage and they stood their ground once more.

The next place the line buckled was among the White Berets. The enemy were sending more of its formidable commanders to that flank. These bog people were much more powerful than the rank-and-file, capable of cutting a wolfman in half with a single stroke of their magic sword. To her surprise, Tindri realized that all of these elite warriors were the corpses of women. Rowri did his best to aid his kin and hold the enemy back, but they were two powerful for him, too, and as the enemy's sword battered him, he fell over and had to crawl to safety, badly mauled.

Once more, Tindri came to the rescue, healing the fighters wounds, but she was growing tired now, and felt she could no longer fuel her magic. As Rowri got up to get back into the fight, she suddently got an idea and went to grab Ebharing to run away with it and keep it safe from the Undead.

However, the moment she grabbed the sword, she felt the evil in it and that will overwhelmed her. Suddenly, all she could feel was the lust to shed blood using that sword. She drew it and tried to attack the Trakorian soldiers from the rear. Their saving grace was that Tindri lacked the strength and training to use a two-handed sword, even a magic one made of mithril. She just could not get a good swing, and Albrich, returning from the Marjuran flank, had no problem disarming her.

The pressure on the line mounted, and eventually, Praanz da Kaelve himself intervened at Rowri's, Albrich's and Sir Roland's side together with Abrelax the ogre. The Digeta Longa colonel was a fantastic swordsman, wielding one blade in each hand. It was very clear that he had copious amounts of experience and even the enemy commanders had to be wary with him. Abrelax, too, made a huge difference. While he had none of the skill or grace of da Kaelve, his raw strength behind his two-handed sword made him a giant scythe, cutting down multiple skeletons with every swing.

But the pressure just kept mounting, and Colonel da Kaelve saw the danger. He ordered Abrelax to stay and guard Ebharing with his life. Then he ordered the troops to make an ordered retreat, slowly stepping backwards to avoid getting flanked, as the Arhemites were at the end of their ropes and could not hold their side anymore.

He climbed up on one of the wagons that were filling up with wounded. A monk he had not seen before was helping Perrima tend to the wounded. He was thin and his bald head made him look almost like a vulture, but what really caught Rowri's attention was that one of his eyes was coloured a clear purple. He had never before seen a human with a purple eye before.

It looked grim.by the front. Albrech and Sir Rolande decided that they would do their level best to help Abrelax defend the sword for as long as possible. As powerful as the ogre was, the enemy elite warriors were powerful, too, and one of them managed to cut his arm clean off by the elbow. After that, three of them, the middle of which was the black skeleton they had seen just when the fighting started, ganged up on the ogre and brought the mighty warrior down. Albrich pointed to the black skeleton and looked at Sir Rolande, who nodded his understanding.

They all went in together. Rowri charged with Sturmendrung and managed to thrust it right through the bronze chest armour. It opened up the plate and crushed many ribs, bits and pieces of which followed the magic sabre on the way out of the torso cavity. Albrech and Rolande attacked, too, and even Tindri loosed as many arrows as she could. Their shafts stuck out of the chest and empty eye socket.

Their efforts were not enough, and now the Undead turned their attention to them. Rowri was hurt once more, and was dragged out of harms way by Tindri, who made sure he got back to the supply train for bandaging. The Undead elite warriors attacked Albrech and Sir Rolande. The power of the blows was too much, and both fell to the ground, unconscious, side by side.

When Tindri got back, the line kept advancing. She saw the black skeleton grab Ebharing and unsheath it, but did not stay to keep fighting. Instead, she hid, using her elven cloak, and let the enemy's line pass her by before quickly and quietly going to find Sir Rolande and Albrech among the fallen on the ground. They both still breathed, albeit barely. Quickly, she got to work with her herbs, binding up their wounds and stopping the bleeding.

When she finally looked up, she realized how quiet the forest had become. The fighting went on somewhere among the white moss trees, but the enemy had passed them buy and left them among the dead. And morning was till many hours off....