Flail in hand, he lifted it overhead.
Not so much as a flinch in his muscles, every one of them, both arms, aching for violence.
Though the only forager within camp tried his best, there was little enough resources to buff out or repair armor.
So he donned his gear, fit for not even the lowliest peasant, though his flail was intact and that was good enough. He took to the head of the next march, two hundred men, with Father Willbress at his side.
Old, but not a crone, he was sharp, and more than just a priest. Willbress was something like the ogre shaman within the swamp, more knowledge of power than the reciting of old songs and prayers.
"You've any idea what Razelael was?" Willbress asked, the march just minutes underway.
"An undead angel who twitched beneath my flail," he answered.
Willbress had a stern look. "At one point he was the most powerful angel of all death's children. Even in death, one shouldn't have slain him so easily."
"Well…," he said, stopping before he could remind himself he needed Feather Sword's help.
Willbress shook his head. "No matter. Point is, you are our kingdom's best hope, haven slain an angel in combat. Perhaps many of these boys will get a chance to return home."
"Many of them won't," he said.
After an odd silence, Willbress said, "Not everyone has the luck of being an undead wretch."
He laughed, steam rising from his breath. "You know what it means old father, to look at death's gaze more often than your own?"
"I know what it means to stand in the light," Willbress said, touching a gold cross with silver ends beneath his collar. "Were his majesty to tell me a Soulless brute would've joined us on this campaign, I'd have remained in my study."
He was a crone after all, and the wiry bug-eyed weasel said nothing more to him for the next hour.
Quiet as the march started, it didn't stay that way, and at noon it was difficult to even hear one's footsteps.
Swords clashed, some against shields, others against one another. Men screamed, many lads among them, horses wailed, and there were violent howls, whoops among the air.
"Skull riders," Willbress said, lowering his voice, heading to the rear ranks.
Robyn rode to the frontlines, sword in hand, waving silent commands.
Spears out, axes ready, shields raised, one step at a time, tight as one could be to another. Save for the brute, conqueror of the Graves, who was a few paces ahead with his daunting weapons.
A shield, though cracked, worth dozens on the front lines, and his flail, a steel whip of death, hanging over his shoulder like a razor serpent.
"My lord," Robyn said, horse trotting up to his side, "I've no doubt in your strength, but his majesty sugges-."
"He's your king. Not mine," he growled.
Robyn stayed back, then looked towards a bored faced Carl.
Fat Bastard.
If Alrieon proved to be anything less than Livarza, even if he did gain something back, he'd make Isaac an only child.
Whoops got closer, Skull Riders charging about fleeing soldiers, and the slaughter continued next to the hidden army for several minutes. A lad crawled from the fog, one eye missing, the other swollen shut, both legs shattered with bone sticking out the knees.
He stomped on the lad's face, crushing his skull in an instant.
Soldiers behind him gasped, some whimpering, though Robyn kept them quiet.
A Skull Rider rode through the fog, right where the lad came from, and he took off the horse's head with one swing. On the ground the rider rolled to recover, axe in one hand, dagger in the other, whistling towards the sky. He swung, splitting the rider in half, and more riders rode towards the fireborne kingdom's forces.
They came from all directions, and most came from the right flank.
After turning sweeping several rides away, blood and bones flying through the air, he hurried to the flank. Robyn kept the front in line, and spears impaled any riders daring a forward charge.
He caught the riders on the right, who taunted and heaved knives between the shield walls cracks.
Dented and near split in hand, his shield was enough to plow over every rider in a single charge. He felt as if he could've ran all day, and he doubled back, crushing riders to death beneath his feet, or his shield. Flail sweeps took out dozens more, and limbs, organs, and eyeballs flew over the ranks.
Some cheered, others were speechless, though Robyn urged everyone to remain silent.
Carl smiled, drawing his sword, shouting towards the sky. "Fire shall take the Burning Lands you dog fuckers! Fuck the Skull Riders, skirt wearing cunts! Where is he? Where's the White Rider?!"'
"Your majesty!" Robyn shouted, pulling his sword out a rider's chest.
Fat Bastard kept rambling, and the woods became quiet.
The march continued, passing over crawling whimpering soldiers leftover from the Skull Riders slaughter. Some were gold armored knights or wore the fine mail he'd seen a day earlier.
"Wayfork's infantry," Robyn explained, shaking his head. "They only recruit lads for the front lines, as a means of making trained soldiers hesitate."
"Useless, against the Skulls," he grumbled, and Robyn nodded.
"It's not uncommon for them to force girls to walk, whether slaves or not. Her majesty of the kingdom is rumored to have snuck a rival houses' lass into a skirmish, and the poor girl was skewered and used as a banner by rival warbands."
A bit more of an explanation, and he realized why Al was so desperate to bring him.
Golden as her heart was, there was no gold worth a damn in all the kingdoms. It was war, death, or a joining of the two and he knew even if Alrieon was slain there'd be little chance children would stop being sent off to die.
A soldier cursed upon a knee, several paces ahead, with bloody mail, a bird's talons on the breast. He stared the soldier down, flail hanging beside the whimpering man's face. It was evident the soldier had seen much fighting before and wasn't so quick to fall like the others.
He walked past him and listened as frontline spears plunge through bone.
Willbress stayed in the rear of the party, offering direction, though his light was brighter, and Robyn persisted the old father be up front.
"I want the White Rider to find us," Carl gloated, a turkey leg in hand. "The sooner he and his pet are heads on spikes, the sooner we can set up a real camp and finish t-."
Fire razed above.
Roars, in all directions, echoed in the sky, and war bands across the fog ridden slosh of the Burning Lands woods fell silent. Another roar, flames gusting behind the kingdom's forces, and men screamed, Skull Riders and other soldiers.
Fire raced ahead of the kingdom's lines, and he backed into the front lines.
Shield up, he warned the front troops to do the same. "Brace yourselves. When I shout, throw your spears."
"That's suicide!" A soldier whispered.
"Aye! We'll last not a skirmish without pikes!" Another bickered.
"You'll be dead!" He snapped. "Heave your spears once I've stunned the beasts!"
Shadows loomed overhead, fiery blue eyes piercing fog.
No wings, dark grey scales, it was a drake with blue leaking flames, a round belly, yet muscular arms. Its rider cracked a whip, a silver haired elf with black robes, mithril stripes, and she had a scar down her right eye.
She commanded in the elvish language, though he heard the beasts name clear enough.
"Grazdeth!....Grazdeth!...."
Blue fire spewed from Grazdeth's jaws.
Many on the front lines were scorched at once, and he burst out with his flail at the low ready. Upon reaching Grazdeth, the beast swatted him, though he stayed upright, stumbling into a tree. Before its claws touched him again, he swatted back, goring its palm with a spiked lash.
On hind legs Grazdeth rose, wailing with a bright smoky mouth. It glared down at him, then spewed flames, the rider cracking her whip wild. He charged through the flames, though his armor was still scorched. A shoulder barge knocked Grazdeth back, the rider leaped to get down, though the drake crashed onto her legs.
He sprinted up the beast's belly, and up its breasts to swing down on its throat. Grazdeth spit up blood after two hits, then on the third went silent, twitching as blue sparks flew from his jaw.
"Bastard!" The rider shouted, hair full of blood. "What kind of monstro-."
He leaped down, popping her skull open like a melon beneath his boots.
It was all fire among his majesty's ranks.
Orange and red, with a white light shining above, and all but a handful weren't screaming engulfed in flames. Robyn rode out, with his majesty and Father Willbress on white steeds leading the way, and he cursed, damning every member of the Pyr family to hells lowest abyss.
Though the soldiers' screams made his head boil, he stepped farther back, keeping his shield raised.
Fog filled surrounded him, and fire became razing lights, smoke blackening the air above. Wyverns wailed, as did dragons, and he heard Alrieon demand House Pyrs surrender.
"As if a High Lord would yield to a pig, a gluttonous worm not worth the hump your mother took to spit you out!"
The riders, at least two, plus Alrieon, soared above, winds rocking old trees and kicking up twigs. Fire fell every so often, but they had little way to find Carl, which would've been fine as far as he was concerned.
They flew closer, Hardok sniffing towards him, and he readied his flail upon glowing orange light.
Bright darts, arrows almost large as a javelin, drove through the black dragon's throat. Fire razed to either side of him, and more colossal great arrows loosed into the wyverns, one rider falling off.
He hurried to a snarling wyvern, one without its rider, then swung spiked steel into its jaws. It wailed stumbling with a hung mouth, smoke bursting from its nostrils. Another swing severed its jaw off, then he took it down with a lash to its neck. Its rider hurried to the other wyvern, bright arrows inching above.
The last wyvern took off, and Hardok grazed the woods, burning as much as possible, before soaring above as well.
Alrieon cursed, searching for Fat Carl, and was out of earshot within seconds.
Faint light shined his way, and four cloaked figures approached him. Their cloaks were dark, but beneath it was bright mithril armor, one which bore a darker set. Every one of them wielded massive bows, among other weapons strapped to them.
They removed their hoods, revealing three men, and one woman, one who'd bothered him within the inn.
"Bless the Lord of Love," the cloaked Elfstone leader said, leaning on a massive golden great bow. "The world's favorite brute."