“What should we do?” one elf shouted above the wind roaring past their ears.
“Unleash our arrows,” Dieredon shouted back. “Watch for the necromancer. Ignore the undead once you locate him.”
The blasphemous blanket of darkness stretched out below them like a great fog, filled with bobbing heads of Velixar’s army. In that chaotic mass, Dieredon knew the man in black would remain well hidden. Not until enough of the undead had been massacred.
He readied his bow, his strong legs the only thing holding him to Sonowin. Three arrows pressed against the string of the bow, their tips dipped in holy water. His quiver, as was the quiver of every elf flying alongside him, contained water given to them by their clerics of Celestia. When their arrows bit into dead flesh, it would be like fire on a dry leaf.
“Let no life lost this night be in vain!” Dieredon cried as they descended like a white river, raining arrows into the darkness. More than two hundred moving forms halted after that one pass, but a thousand more swayed in their sick, distracting dance.
“One free pass,” Velixar said, observing the flight of elves as they swarmed overhead. They banked around, still in perfect formation, and then dove again.
“Kill them now!” he ordered, his fingers crooking into strange shapes.
“Hemorrhage!” Qurrah hissed, pointing at the nearest horse. Blood ruptured from the beautiful creature’s neck. The rider steadied her best he could, knowing his doom approached. They crashed into the inky blackness, crushing bodies underneath before the swarming dead tore them to pieces.
Velixar’s first attack was far more impressive. Bits of bone ripped out from his undead army; femurs, fingers, ribs, and teeth flew into the sky in a deadly assault. The elves broke formation as the barrage approached. The first ten, however, were too close to have hope. Bone shredded wings and scattered feathers. The elves that were alive when their horses landed died by the clawing hands of rotted flesh.
Dieredon looped in the sky, his confidence shaken at the sight of so many of his dying friends. He fired arrows three at a time, his quiver never approaching empty. He ordered Sonowin lower, shouting out the command as another barrage of bone pelted four more elves to their deaths. Skimming above the darkness, Dieredon fired volley after volley behind him. When they were past the undead, he pulled Sonowin high into the air to observe the battlefield.
The ranks of the undead were half of what they had been, yet still he could not see the lowered black hood he so badly needed to see.
“Come, Sonowin, we will find him, even if it means killing every last one of his puppets.”
The horse neighed and dove, spurred on by the sight of its own kind falling in death.
“Behind you, master,” Qurrah said. He hurried the words of a spell as Velixar turned. An incorporeal hand shot from Qurrah’s own, flying across the battlefield to where an elf dove toward them, arrows flashing two at a time in the starlight. The hand struck the elf in the chest, freezing flesh and eviscerating his insides with ice. The flying horse banked upward as its master fell limp into the fog.
“Beautiful, Qurrah,” Velixar said, bloodlust burning in his red eyes. His precious undead were being massacred. He could feel their numbers dwindling in his mind, now but a third of what his glorious army had been.
“This has gone on long enough,” he seethed. He outstretched his hands and shrieked words of magic. Qurrah staggered back, in awe of the power that came rolling forth. The fog of darkness swirled and recoiled at each word Velixar spoke. The cold on his flesh grew sharper as the blackness grew thicker.
“Be gone from me!” Velixar cried, yanking down his arms. Six fingered hands ripped up from the black, some smaller than a child’s, some as large as houses. Each one lunged to the sky, clutching and grabbing at the elves that circled above.
“Retreat!” one elf shouted, banking as black fingers tore through the air just before his mount. Another screamed as a hundred tiny hands enveloped him, crushing the life from his body. Dieredon clutched Sonowin’s neck as a hand the size of a tree swung open-palmed at him. Sonowin spun, diving closer to the darkness and underneath the giant hand.
Cries of pain filled the night as more and more elves fell to the reaching black magic.
Dieredon held on tight, trusting his life to Sonowin. He scanned the battlefield while they whirled up and down, over one hand and then dancing away from another. Just as Sonowin pulled higher and higher into the air, outracing more than seven growing hands reaching up for them, the elf spotted two lone figures amid the sea of dead.
“Sonowin,” he shouted to his steed. “There, you must get to them!”
The horse snorted, banked around, and dove straight for the approaching hands. A quick spiral avoided the first wave. Dieredon clutched his bow and held on for dear life, his eyes locking on the man in black who stood perfectly still, his arms at downward angles from his body. The rest of the elves were in full retreat. He was the only one left.
Qurrah watched Dieredon’s approach with a gnawing fear in his chest. It seemed no hand could touch this one, the horse possessing dexterity beyond what any creature that size should have. Velixar showed no sign of being aware of their approach. His eyes had rolled back into his head as he controlled the multitude of magical hands.
“Be gone,” Qurrah said, firing several pieces of bone. All pieces missed. He tried to cast another hemorrhage spell but the words felt heavy and drunk on his tongue. His mind ached, his chest heaved, and when the spell finished it created nothing but a wound the size of an arrowhead in the side of Sonowin.
“Master, defend yourself!” Qurrah shouted as loud as he could. Still nothing. More and more hands curled in, surrounding Dieredon and Sonowin in a magical maelstrom, yet still they came.
“Fly, Sonowin,” the elf shouted. “Fly safe!”
Dieredon leapt from Sonowin’s back, the blades on his bow gleaming. He fell through the air, the long spike on the bottom aimed directly for Velixar’s head.
“Master!” Qurrah shouted again, shoving his body against Velixar's. His concentration broken, Velixar lost his control of the black fog. The darkness swirled inward as if Velixar were the center of a giant drain. The blackness filled him, surrounded him, and consumed him. When all returned, and Dieredon was about to land, a wave of pure sound and energy rippled outward. Velixar was waking, and he was angry.
The wave sent Qurrah crashing against a giant undead man still wearing rusted platemail. The collision blasted the air from his lungs. When he hit the ground, stars filled his vision. Dieredon fought but could not resist that same wave of power. The point of his blade halted a foot from the top of the black hood before he flew back. In the distance, Qurrah watched his master glaring at the damned elf who had fallen like a mad man.
“Scoutmaster,” Velixar growled, his voice deep and dark like an ancient daemon of old. “Twice you have looked upon me and lived. No more.”
Dieredon twirled his bow, his face calm and emotionless.
“Too many have died at your hand. What life you have ends tonight.”
Velixar roared, a sound that made Qurrah shiver and avert his eyes. His master’s back was to him, so he could not see the face that Dieredon saw, which was full of rotted skin and crawling, feasting things.
Suddenly Dieredon pulled back. The blades in his bow snapped inward.
“Arrows cannot hurt me,” Velixar mocked. “They did not the first time. Why do you hope so now?”
“Because these arrows are different.”
He fired three at once, all burying deep into Velixar’s chest. The man in black screamed as the sacred water burned his skin. He fell to one knee and vomited a pile of white flesh and maggots.
“You will suffer,” he gasped. “For ages, I will make you suffer.”
“Try it,” said Dieredon.
Two more arrows flew, but they halted in mid-air. Velixar stood, his hand outstretched, gripping the projectiles with his mind. The elf fired two more volleys but all the arrows froze beside the others.
“Fool,” Velixar hissed. At once, the arrows turned and resumed their flight, straight at Dieredon. The elf dove, rolling underneath the barrage. Not an arrow had hit earth before the elf tucked his feet and kicked. The blades sprang from his bow. He crossed the distance between the two in a heartbeat.
Velixar accepted a stab deep into his chest. A pale hand grabbed Dieredon’s throat, its grip iron and its flesh ice.
“It will be painful,” Velixar said. Vile magic swirled about his hand, pouring into Dieredon’s neck. The blood in his veins clotted and thickened.
A toss of his hand and the elf flew through the air. He rolled across the ground without the usual grace he had shown in combat.
Qurrah glanced about, paralyzed with fear. The remaining elves were returning, deadly and furious, and the darkness that had protected them was gone.
“Do you feel it?” Velixar said, stalking over to the dying elf. “The blood in your throat is clotting. Your mind will starve and your heart will burst trying to force blood through.”
He knew he should speak. He had to warn master. But he could not open his mouth. He could not move. The pegasi were closer. They were readying their bows. He had to speak!
“Can you feel it?” the man in black asked. “Can you feel your heart shudder and throb? Here, let me help your pain.”
Dieredon lay on his back, staring up at him. His chest was a mess of pain, his mind light and dizzy. As Velixar reached down, his maggoty face smiling and his hand dripping unholy magic, a wave of arrows rained upon him. Five buried into Velixar’s back. Six more found his legs and arms. He arched and shrieked as the blessed water seared his wretched body.
Dieredon staggered to his feet, his bow still in his hands. The man in black reached around and tore out the arrows from his body. Still no blood flowed.
“My name is Dieredon,” the elf gasped. “Know it before I send you to the abyss.”
He fired two arrows, one for each eye. They shattered into fire, and finally blood did flow. It ran down the dead flesh and bone that was his face, over his black robes, and pooled in the grass below. He fell prone, still screaming his anger and fury. For five hundred years he had walked the land of Dezrel. All that time, all those killings, and this was how he would fail.
“Karak!” he shouted, all his power fleeing him. His undead minions collapsed, their souls released. The gates to the abyss opened before his eyes, and he felt the pull on his soul. The dark fire already burned. He saw the face of his master, and the sick grin there horrified him.
“I will not die!” he shrieked. “I will not die!”
His flesh burned in fire, his bones blew away as dust on the wind, and only an empty robe remained of the being that was Velixar. Yet, still haunting the wind, was his final cry, a promise to the world of Dezrel.
“I will not die!”