“Come on! Put your backs into it!”
Sergeant Gedryn stood at the back of the guard formation as the officers who heaved the improvised battering ram fell back to once more attempt to break down the gates of the arena.
To think the gladiators would have the guts to break free and kill their masters. It was a travesty, but Gedryn always knew it was coming.
The gladiators had always been given too much freedom. After all, any slave not in chains was a liability, so easily they would slouch and laze away when not directly watched, and when they weren’t wasting precious time and investment, they would plot against their masters.
He had seen it all before. The foul, slouching humans were the worst. They seem so elf-like on the surface, but beneath it they were nothing but deceitful-
He was brought out of his contemplations as the gates swing open, and the alarmed yells of the guardsmen who were taken completely unawares cut through the afternoon, swiftly followed by war cries from within the arena.
A reddish brown-skinned warrior leaps out of the gates, a slightly too small bronze chestplate as armor and one sword in each hand.
Before the guards of the battering ram have time to recover, and anyone has time to react, two of the brave defenders of the city are dead, their slit necks squirting blood all over the warrior, whose appearance is suddenly followed by a swarm of armed and (variably) armored rebels.
“Arm yourselves!”
Gedryn draws his blade and heads into combat.
As he watches, the rebels cut into the guards with impressive ferocity, but they don’t fight like a troop, instead rather engaging their opponents as individuals.
While their sheer ferocity and skill are both highly dangerous, they are met evenly by the discipline and unity of the guardsmen.
But the target of Gedryn’s attention wasn’t the general warrior, but the clear and obvious leaders of the pack.
The warrior, that he now could tell was a half-orc, and his massive human companion rampaged akin to raging storms, and wherever they were the guardsmen had no choice but withdraw.
Gedryn grinned to himself.
This would be a worthy challenge, and when he put the duo’s heads at the captain’s feet, maybe she wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss his advances.
After all, he was one of the finest blade masters there were in the city, and he would prove that his title was well deserved.
“I’m Gedryn, master of swords, and I challenge yo-”
Crudus kicks the elf hard in the groin, and he can hear something crunching as the man topples.
“Get outta me way ye pompy twat!”
Crudus delivers a second kick to the downed man’s face to ensure that he stays down before continuing his riot.
To his left, Thralmat broke the spine of a guard with almost dismissive ease, bare-handedly bearing down on his enemies like some sort of humanoid bear, and it was a joy to watch, even if Crudus didn’t exactly have much time for such frivolities.
There was too many of the guards, and too few of his fellow gladiators, and it was up to him and Thralmat to pick up the slack.
“To tha city! We can’t fight ’em all out ‘ere!”
He traded a few blows with with a particularly skilled guardsman, before spitting in his eye, head-butting him and then decapitating the sucker.
He knew one thing when it came to fighting, only suckers fought clean. If you want to live, you use every trick there is, and Crudus intended to stay alive.
An arc of arcane energy struck into the gladiator to his left, searing the man and melting the bronze helmet he was wearing.
Crudus snaps his gaze to the mage.
It was a gorgeous female elf who stood in the midst of the guardsmen, glaring disdainfully at the rebels.
Crudus would be damned if he let anyone else fight this one.
He quickly battered past a few guards who had been protecting the woman’s flanks.
“Oi, gorgeous! How ’bout we ditch the crowd an’ have some fun, eh?!”
The woman turns around, full red lips parted in a angry sneer, strands of magic lashing out, wrapping around Crudus and throwing him backwards, bowling down a dozen warriors from the force that sent him sprawling on the ground.
Crudus struggles to his feet, head still reeling from the unexpected impact.
He coughs, wiping bloody saliva from a broken lip.
“Oi babe, I get tha feelin’ yer mad”
The elf seems to only be further infuriated by his comment.
“I’m a male, knave!”
the elf’s hands sparked, and his eyes glowed with magical energies as he seemed to be lifted into the air, long hair rising into the hair.
“Whatever babe, I’d still fuck ye.”
Crudus grins slightly.
It’s a good day to die.
He bares his teeth and picks up the one blade that fell to the ground within reach.
Anders had been rushing through the beautiful streets of the large city after having ensured the former slaves’ safe arrival at the sewer entrance.
He ducks into an alley that his companion pointed out to him.
She had been rather stern in the matter, and Ygrin had plainly go with either the ones heading to the stables or the ones escaping the city.
Insisting that he would need someone who could interpret his writing once they came to the aid of the rebels at the arena.
She wasn’t wrong, and Anders couldn’t really find a proper reason to refuse her.
The one issue, her obviously non-elven appearance dealt with in a similar manner as Anders’ own.
Once at the gates of the massive mausoleum, tucked safely behind a massive temple to the elven gods, Anders holds his hand up silently.
“What?”
Anders hastily scribbles on his board, showing it to her.
Wait here.
She nods slowly, correcting the veil placed over her face.
“Well, if you’re sure…”
Anders nods, and she sighs softly, retreating into the shadows next to the mausoleum as Anders makes his way inside.
The massive doors reluctantly give way to Anders’ insistent hands, groaning open.
Within, the darkness is oppressive, and for a moment Anders hesitates.
He’s only done this once, and that was with a recently deceased crow, was it even possible for him to raise one of these dead from their slumber, let alone enough to turn the tide?
And what would the consequences be?
Was he really ready for this?.
Only one way to find out.
Clutching his board to his chest, he steps into the darkness.
The great doors swing shut behind him, leaving him completely alone in yet another tomb.
For a moment, panic sets its’ talons in him, and he turns towards the door, grabbing the handle.
He stops.
If he didn’t do this, if he didn’t even try, the people at the arena would die.
The people whose only wish was to gain the freedom they should have had since their birth.
He couldn’t just turn his back on them.
He turns towards the tomb once more, placing his back towards the door.
He waits there for a couple of moments, and then places one foot in front of the other, advancing into the darkness.
He grabs a torch from the wall, only to remember that he lacks a means to light it.
Damn.
He lets the torch clatter to the floor, placing his hand towards the cold, hard stone.
Slowly stepping forwards.
All too suddenly, his feet find no stable ground, and he falls, only to hit a set of stairs with bone-jarring force.
Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow!
He lays sprawled on the floor, and once more he can be somewhat thankful for his undead state.
After all, if he had felt that, he would be in some serious pain right now.
He rises to his feet, fumbling to find the wall again.
His hand finds the wall, and with it a plaque made from metal, clearly marking a tomb.
He gathers himself, and concentrates.
His mind is filled with runes that seem to surge out of him, burrowing in the stone around him, etching themselves into the surface.
The frightening, angular runes glow ominously, showering the room he’s in with cruel, fiery orange light.
Then it seems to explode, ripples of magical energies surging into every crevice, nook and cranny of the room, and Ander’s head is filled by a howling as of spectral wolves.
Then silence returns, for a moment.
Subtly at first, Anders can feel entity after entity coming into contact with his mind, and he can hear the stones blocking each of the tombs falling onto the ground, shattering.
Then he can hear a droning, brainless groaning come up from the depths of the mausoleum.
Soon, he is joined by a horde of undead in various states of decay, varying from fleshless skeletons to rotting zombies.
If Anders could, he would probably have puked.
They were disgusting, and once more he was reminded of his own status as an aberration from nature.
He sent out his mental command, and as one the undead turned and begun to march up the stairs to the surface.
What had he done?
Tyrien looked up from the half-human that he had been taking great delight in tormenting for his insolent comments regarding his gender.
His face grew pale as he looked in the direction of the tidal wave of dark magic that flowed from the center of the city like a tsunami.
He felt dirty, his stomach turning within him.
How could it be?
How could a dark mage of that potency get into the city?
Why hadn’t the wards repelled it?
It was madness.
“Oi, cunt, don’t turn yer back on m-”
He lashed out almost thoughtlessly, and once more his aether whip impacted with the half-human, half-orc and thew him like the insignificant rag-doll that he was compared to the might of Tyrien’s magic.
Tyrien’s eyes darted around, trying to see if there are any additional signs of whatever monstrous spell had just been unleashed, but he couldn’t.
Instead, he spots a crow circling overhead.
Normally, the presence of crown near the battlefield wasn’t a uncommon sight, but this one radiated a sensation of pure, unadulterated evil of a level Tyrien could hardly fathom.
He lifts his finger towards the crow, and a sphere of energy consumes the bird.
It hardly has time to caw before it is reduced to no more than burnt feathers.