The Grim Legion

by Kindred Ult

  'What if I die? What will happen to the others? This is impossible! Even if I win, we will all still die. Just like Lidian, just like my family. We will all die.'

  Finally, Demenn lost momentum, and Brand was sick of this. He was annoyed of having to fight his opponent to a standstill, he was angry with himself for not ending this sooner, but mostly he was angry that he could not beat a spear user. He channeled his anger into one attack, and he timed it when Demenn was throwing an attack with his blunt side. Demenn's spear struck his in the ribs again, but Brand barely felt it as he lifted his sword into the air and slammed it down on Demenn, who was too close to dodge. Demenn saw the attack coming and was forced to kneel just so that he could create enough room to block the strike with his spear held out horizontally with both of his hands above his head. As the two weapons met, Demenn was thankful for having a metal spear shaft.

  The sword and spear both reverberated with the strength of the attack, and Demenn's entire body trembled as he took the shock of the strike. Brand was not nearly as affected, since his sword's handle took most of the damage away from him. He lifted his sword and slammed it down again, and again Demenn shook from the force. Then he attacked again, and again, and again. He bagan grunting with each strike, thowing all of his strength into each downward chop. As Demenn knelt there, he realized the hopelessness of his situation, he was on his knees, he only had one method of defense, and his defense hurt him more than the attack hurt the enemy. His arms felt close to buckling, and he knew that he could not take any more. He would die here, in this forest, and this werewolf with two names would take his heart and devour it. He would never achieve anything else. He would never find out what the cross that had been his sister's meant, he would never live to see if he could find his old master. He would die here.

  The last thought reverberated in his mind with almost as much force as Brand's blows. As Demenn though about it, he found that he did not care if he died right now, he was already dead, but if he was going to die, he might as well win this fight before doing it. Even as his body shook from another vicious strike, his mind formed one thought that morphed from his subconscious to his thoughts and finally out of his mouth. "I will not lose!"

  Brand lifted his sword up for another strike, but when he brought it down, he noticed a slight shift from Demenn. Too late, Brand saw him take his fingers from his spear's shaft so that only his palms were touching it. Once the two weapons met, Demenn shifted his spear to the side, and Brand's sword slid down it harmlessly, passing by Demenn's hands that were no longer threatened. In another moment all Brand saw was Demenn grab his spear again and continue his swing to slam the spear into his face. The blade of the spear cut across Brand's forehead, and in a moment blood spilled inside his eyes, blinding him. He ran his arm across his eyes and looked up to see Demenn's spear inches away from his face. Demenn was standing above him, and his spear was cocked back like a pool player to deliver the final blow. Brand looked Demenn in his eyes, and could not discern what he saw there. If Brand were in the humorous mood, he would have laughed at the fact that his new eyes had defeated him, if he had not taken them, he could have continued fighting. As it was he tried to discern what Demenn would do. One thing was certain for him, however, and that was that he was about to die.

  Then Demenn sighed, put down his spear, and kicked Brand in the chest. As Brand fell back he saw countless werewolves flow over Demenn and also the other vampires who were still fighting back to back. Apparently a large number of werewolves had stopped fighting to watch the two of them fight. The vampires were quickly beaten down, and their weapons were taken from them. They were all restrained, and they were about to have their hearts ripped out when Brand stood up. He morphed into his first class form and bellowed out.

  "You will not kill these vampires. They are now prisoners of the King, and no harm is to be done to them." His wounds had healed, and he looked as if nothing had ever happened to him. "Any werewolf that does not comply will be immediately ripped to shreds. His powerful visage and carriage cowed the werewolves, and none of them killed the vampires. Brand walked up to where Demenn was being held by five werewolves and lifted his face to him.

  "Why didn't you kill me, even after knowing that I killed your friend?" Brand's guttural voice shook a bit.

  Demenn spit blood from his mouth to the ground. He stared at Brand for a moment. "I just thought that, since I was going to die here no matter who won our match, it would be a shame to have to kill a blue-eyed werewolf with two names before I died. I guess you just seem different, Brand." Demenn smiled at him until a second class werewolf punched him in the jaw and knocked him unconscious. Brand growled at the werewolf, but did not stop the same treatment when it was administered to the other vampires as well.

  "Take them to the King." Brand called out and became the head of a procession of hundreds of werewolves as they all headed back to the werewolf lair.

  - 17 -

  Uncivilised

  Goodness, well this one took awhile to come out… Yea, I've been lazy lately. Anywho, not that it really matters, but while reading this I totally realized that Niethel's theme song is (or should be) The Bird and The Worm by The Used. It just kinda' fits him well. I've never thought about stuff like this before, but if I think of one for someone else I'll inform you. Also, it's awesome that people are reading this (especially Abstow), so if you are reading this and you like the story, why not shoot me a comment and tell me so, just so I'll know if I'm doing this whole thing well or not. Thanks .

  11

  UncivilizedOne moment Niethel was standing amidst his comrades, wondering if he should insist on staying one last time and listening to the werewolves getting ever nearer. He had his arms around Sophella, and he felt happy about that, but he also felt a burning in him to fight and die alongside Demenn and the others. All of his life, even before he was Turned, he had been branded a coward; granted, he had done many things to make those around him call him that, but he had also done things to fight against it. Ever since he had been a human, he had been working on his marksmanship, and the bow had always been his specialty, but he had also worked on his bladework for years. He usually stayed back at the back of the fighting, but he also looked out for others when shooting.

  It galled him to always be called a coward, and it angered him even more when he knew that he deserved it. He wanted this moment. He wanted it to prove to those two brothers, to Sophella, and to Demenn that he was not a coward; even more than that, though, he wanted to prove to himself that he would stay and fight when there was no hope for survival. He wanted to show himself that he was not a coward. In the end, though, and to his shame, he let his grip tighten and failed to utter a word as Sophella finished her spell and they were gone.

  In the next moment, Niethel was still attached to Sophella, but he was in a part of the forest he did not recognize. As soon as he released Sophella, he felt a wave of grief and self-maligning anger flow over him, quickly followed by a wave of nausea. He turned and stumbled to a tree before retching onto it. No foods or water came from his stomach since he had not eaten anything in years, only acid and spit. He leaned against the tree and welcomed the stinging in his throat and mouth. However weak it was, it still gave him some comfort to know that he felt some pain.

  'They're right about me, I'm nothing but a stupid, cowardly woman. I could have stayed with them. I should have stayed with them. I could be fighting with them right now. We could be side-by-side, working in unison and fending of death. But no! I have to be the one they send away; the one they think that they're doing a favor by letting live. I hate myself. I let my desire to live get the best of me. I'm just like they said!'

  He berated and cursed himself, calling to mind all of the worst curses he could think of and screaming them at himself. He wanted to feel like dirt, to malign and attack himself so that he could forget just how much he hated himself at that moment for abandoning his allies.

  His little tirade could have—and probabl
y would have—continued for far longer, but eventually Sophella walked up to him and stood beside him. He was still bent and resting on the tree, looking at the puddle of vomit that was pooling below him, but he turned to her and looked into her eyes. She smiled before shifting back and slamming her closed fist into his face. He fell onto the ground on his back and swiftly grabbed at his nose. Thankfully, it was not broken. Sophella stared down at him, and he could have crawled under a rock and died just because of the look in her eyes.

  "Alright, I apologize for the nausea, that's just a by-product from warping, and one of us had to take it all. I just felt that, since you were the extra weight, you should take pain. But seriously, what the hell? What's all this "I'm a worm" bull? We all chose you to go, and I don't care if you didn't want to. I'm still just a third class, and there's no way I'm going to go all the way back to our destination on my own. If you're a coward, you should have told us that sooner, not right when it is just the two of us, and I swear to you, if you leave me to die when we get attacked, I'll come back and kill you myself."

  As she spoke, Niethel wondered how she knew, but then he cursed silently again. The mindlink between them was still up.

  She jerked her head quickly. "Yea, you're damn right. Now I don't care if you're a woman like they say, but if you're quite done, we have an important job to do. I'm not going to slow down for you, so you'd better be ready now."

  It was at that moment, staring up at the short vampire, that Niethel realized that he had never been more scared of a person in the entirety of both of his lives. He wondered just how much of a fool he had been in front of her, and he felt ashamed as he stood up. "Yea, I'm ready." He almost whispered his response.

  "Good," He could have sworn he saw fire in her eyes as she strode away from him, "Now we're going this way, come on."

  She started running and he quickly followed. He ran almost next to her, but just to her right and a little behind her. Without realizing why, he felt like even she was superior to him at that moment. She had a backbone, she had taken command, she was fine with running. He felt ashamed that she was more of a man than he was. He-

  "Didn't I just say to stop thinking those weird things?" Sophella spoke in rhythm with her every running step.

  He could have smacked himself in the head if he had not been so focused on running. "You know, that mindlink thing you've got there is rather annoying, would you mind cutting it off?"

  She gave a chuckle. "Oh, now you're talking like nothing ever happened huh? Just want to pass off that little inner monologue you had there as never having taken place?"

  Niethel made a face he hoped she could not see. "Well, that whole thing was just a moment of weakness caused by the warping I think." He also hoped she could not tell he was lying.

  "Liar."

  'Damn it!'

  "Fine, so I've got problems, it's not like everyone's perfect right?"

  Another chuckle. "True, but not everyone's a coward either."

  "Guh, whatever, so what's the plan?"

  "Well, we're going to run west until I find out just what happened at the battle, and then I'll tell you from there." She looked forward as she ran, never looking at him.

  Niethel blinked. "Woah, woah, woah. Who made you the boss of this team?" He did not care if he had just asked what they would do; this situation just made him uncomfortable.

  This time she looked at him from the corner of her eye. "Not who, what. First, you're obviously a self-proclaimed coward. Second, I know more than you do about this situation. Third, Demenn said that you would be helping me, not the other way around. And finally, fourth, you're a self-proclaimed coward."

  He sighed. This entire situation was not turning out to be what he had expected, but he figured that this was how it must be.

  Sophella smiled. "Yes, yes it is."

  They had been running for about twenty minutes when Sophella stopped and looked back the way she came. Niethel stopped and leaned against a tree, but he still took advantage of her turning around to stare at her blond hair as it twirled across her face.

  "Pervert." She mumbled.

  He was about to groan when she shot up her hand for him to stop. She was staring intently back towards where they knew the werewolf lair was, and for a second he could have sworn her eyes went white. In moments she shook her head and looked back at him. She was frowning, and her eyes told him something had happened.

  "What's wrong, how are Demenn and them doing?" Niethel was afraid he did not want to know the answer.

  She looked down. While she did her hair hid her face as well as any emotion she may have shown to him. He wondered while he looked at her just how that mindlink worked, because he would have loved to know what she was thinking.

  Before Niethel could really delve into thinking about it, she looked up, and her face was a blank slate. "Demenn and the others were defeated. They have been taken prisoner and are just now being taken to their lair. Many other werewolves are prowling the area because the one who is in charge remembered that there was seven of us."

  The complete lack of emotion in her face puzzled Niethel, but then he thought about Demenn, Varus, Raphael, and Leon being captured. He wondered just what would happen to them inside the lair, and he shuddered. Once again, that nagging voice inside of him came back. It attacked him for not being there with them, but in that moment he pushed the thought out of the way as he focused on the last part of their sentence. He had to protect Sophella, and they had to reach the vampires with news of the werewolf lair, or else Demenn's work would all have been for nothing.

  "So—" Niethel's voice cracked and he had to stop to force himself into a calm state of mind. "So since they're looking for us, what do we do? It took us a night and a day to reach here, so it will take us almost that long to get back, what will we do for the daytime?"

  Sophella turned back to the west and concentrated. "There's a safe house about half of the distance to vampire territory. We should reach there by daytime."

  "If we don't die first." He smiled wryly.

  "If we don't die first." She agreed, while letting the smallest hint of a smile onto her face.

  He saw the beginnings of that smile, and just for a moment he thought that the greatest achievement he could make in his life would be to bring about that smile in full. He wanted to think on nothing else beside that, but then he flinched as he remembered the mindlink between them. When he looked at her, however, he saw that she was distracted. A howl that sounded about a mile away from them brought him back from his reverie, and sent the both of them running west.

  "Do you think it found us?" Niethel gasped as he ran with all of his strength.

  "There's a good chance."

  They both winced when they heard the sounds of numerous paws slapping on the path behind them. Niethel tried to discern just how many were behind them, but the sounds were too mingled together for him to make anything out of it.

  "There's seventeen of them." Sophella grunted as she started running faster.

  "Seventeen!?" Niethel's mind was already running through the possibilities involved in fighting or evading seventeen werewolves. Escape was out of the option; it is impossible for a vampire to outrun a werewolf on all fours. At the same time, though, he knew that there was no way the two of them could kill seventeen werewolves, even if they were all fifth class.

  "They're not, but at least none of them are second class."

  Now it seemed even more impossible. "Then what do we do? Can you teleport again?"

  She chuckled, but it seemed less at him than at herself. "No, not so soon after just doing it. Well, I might be able to, but it would basically render one of us worthless for quite awhile, or even kill us."

  "Ouch, I guess that's out of the question then." Niethel was trying to think of something.

  He was still thinking when he realized that he wasn't paying enough attention to those pursuing them. He returned his attention in time to hear one of the creatures stop running, but he did not un
derstand why until it finished its leap and slammed into his back. He tried to roll over, but it pinned him to the ground with its sharp claw and he could feel its jaws just above his neck. A shiver coursed down his spine when it breathed on him. He was sure that he was about to die, but then the werewolf howled and slumped off of him.

  Niethel stood and drew his bow from his back in time to know that it would do him no good. All of the others were too close. He dropped the bow and pulled out his sword and dirk in preparation. He knew with a certainty that he would die very swiftly, but a part of him was happy that he would be able to finally silence that voice inside him.

  Instead of attacking them right away as they first one had done, the rest of the werewolves circled around the two of them and pulled out their weapons. There were many varieties of weapons among them, but swords were undoubtedly the most populous. Niethel stared at all of them before turning to Sophella. She was working her fingers swiftly, and looked to be concentrating again.