Wednesday, March 2, 2011

A Battle Worth Many Songs

The dust slowly settled and Pestilence looked around, breathing heavily. Just a moment ago, she had struck the amazonian archer down after she had gathered all her remaining power to deal one last blow. The sun was setting and in the reddish glow she could see War slowly sinking onto his knee, barely keeping himself upright. Famine slowly walked towards her, both his sword and his body dripping with blood. He had lost one of the horns of the ram's skull he wore as a helmet and blood was running slowly out of the long cuts in the hide he was wearing.
As she turned her head a bit more, she could see the bare-chested body of her youngest son lying on the ground. Almost a whole quiver worth of arrows was sticking in his body, casting long shadows on the blood-soaked ground around him. It had been a hard test the spirits had taken them through. Almost too hard.

They had taken early hits from the two female archers whose range seemed almost unlimited and whose arrows were as deadly as Death's blade. She tried to get the images of the battle in her head in order. A misunderstanding between Death and Famine had brought Death close to his end early in the battle, but she had managed to bring him back to his feet with the help of Famine. She herself had gone down and could remember War administering her a potion to get her back to her feet. Even Famine, her oldest and by far strongest son was knocked unconscious by one of the paladin's mighty blows. The spirits must have truly favoured them. Pestilence could not explain otherwise how she and her sons had survived this slaughter.

Another image of the paladins and her two sons lying on the grounds, fighting each other as fiercely as if they are standing, came to her mind. She shook her head while she was walking towards the amazonian ranger. She looked at the shattered body while her eagle silently landed next to her. She kneeled down next to the body and looked at it for a while, then closed her eyes. A few minutes passed while she was murmuring spells as old as live itself. When she opened her eyes again she looked up to her two sons who had closed in.
"We have won this battle and passed the test the spirits had set up for us. They are pleased with your victory!" They could feel raw power floating through their bodies, healing their wounds and giving them strength. They could see Death getting up to his feet again, his wounds slowly closing. "Today we fought the strongest opponents so far. They have proven themselves worthy of our respect and we will honour them as it is due for heroes!"
Her sons nodded in agreement and silently left to gather the bodies of the fallen opponents.

Half an hour later, the flames were eating through the four wooden piles and reached high up into the dark sky. The four bodies, cleaned and wrapped into their armour with their weapons on their chest, burned slowly, while the chants of Pestilence were the only sounds in the night. Songs that asked the spirits to take those bodies and grant their souls a place in the eternal forests of the great hunter. Songs telling the story of a battle so fierce that the gods themselves will listen to them in their great halls for a long time.

3 comments:

  1. Wow, that was even closer than I thought it would be!
    Even when the Knighty knights were down to one archer, I still thought they had a chance.
    Great battle!

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  2. So gracious in victory - It makes losing much easier to take.

    I was very impressed with how well Sven's team work together and support each other. He has so many difficult aspects balanced just right - Damage vs Healing, Close Melee vs Distance Spells, Spead vs Might, and so on.

    But overall, Sven's real advantage over any team is that he is a consummate player of games.

    Bravo!

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  3. I could beat him.
    He just got lucky last time.
    :P

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