As soon as my muscles tensed, everyone suddenly began moving again, like coiled springs finally releasing.
The bandits let out screeches of terror and scattered in fear, like children who’d spotted a spider. Meanwhile, the guards surrounding the carriage began issuing orders and firing arrows in my direction.
Several arrows struck my side—or would have, at least, if it weren’t for my cloak. The garment stopped the arrows in their tracks, sending each one tumbling harmlessly to the ground with a hollow thunk.
Despite having saved the guards, this was how they repaid me.
“Why’d you do that?”
They met my question with blank, wide-eyed stares.
One guard—perhaps their captain—called to the others. “I want two men here with me to keep him from pursuing us. The rest of you, take the carriage and get out of here!”
Two guards drew their swords. Another released the dead horse from its harness, while a fourth hopped into the driver’s seat.
No sooner did I step forward than the captain of the guards rode close and raised his sword. “Not one more step! You two, on his flanks!”
As the words left his mouth, the captain drove his spurs into his horse’s sides and charged at me, sunlight glinting off his sword.
I teleported away, throwing the captain off balance. However, that left my back open to the two guards looping around the sides. I dodged one man’s blows, and deflected the other’s sword with my staff. I turned around just in time to find the captain’s blade swinging down at me.
His sword caught my staff with a loud clang and sent a shower of sparks into the air.
“I’ll kill you, hell spawn!”
The captain yelled epithets at me, a vein bulging in his forehead, as he tried to push his sword into me. His hateful face grew ever-closer to mine as he put all his weight behind his blade. Finally, I could see myself reflected in his pupils. The image was that of a hairless, skinless skeleton. Red flame flickered deep within its empty skull, behind its eye sockets.
I was caught off guard by my own appearance. I swung my staff, knocking the captain away, and brought a hand to my face. All I felt under my trembling fingertips was cold, hard bone—not a hint of the soft, warm sensation of flesh.
“Back to the ground with you, undead scum!”
Taking advantage of my momentary lapse in focus, the captain came charging back in with his sword.
“I’m done with you.”
I’d grown annoyed by his presence. With a swing of my staff, I engulfed the man in a ball of black flame. Within moments, nothing was left of him but ash.
“You bastard!”
“For the captain!”
The two remaining men were enraged. They charged at me, swords lowered. I barely managed to get out of the way before reducing them to ashes as well. The crackle of fire echoed across the hills.
I looked around, feeling nothing in particular. The carriage was gone. I turned my gaze back toward the winding road; off in the distance, I saw it speeding away. I lost sight of it as it rounded a hill.
I sighed heavily and examined my staff.
Despite having just massacred numerous people, I didn’t really feel anything, aside from an odd, indescribable emotion smoldering deep within my heart, which soon passed.
The next thing I knew, I was back at the crossroads, where the path I’d taken out of the forest met the main road.
The sun was at the horizon, the sky bathed in deep lavender as night fell. I sat on a nearby rock, looking up into the emptiness.
I’d come to terms with my appearance, and was trying to figure out my next steps, when suddenly, several lights appeared on the hillside. It took me a few moments to realize they were heading straight toward me.
By the time I understood what was going on, I faced a legion of over a hundred soldiers, their spear tips reflecting the setting sun’s blood-red glow.
These men were outfitted with heavier, more extravagant armor than the guards I’d just encountered, and with capes that fluttered in the wind. The capes were probably white, but the setting sun bathed them in crimson, reminding me of Rome’s armies.
A man wearing a suit of armor even more extravagant than the others urged his horse forward, raised his hand into the sky, and brought it down in a broad sweep. On his signal, the soldiers lowered their spears and charged. The air filled with the thunder of hooves, the ground shaking underneath me.
I had no time to teleport out of the situation.
I shot fireball after fireball at the oncoming army, but it was like throwing pebbles at a wave—there were simply too many soldiers. The ones I did hit—men and horses alike—stopped dead in their tracks, burnt to the bone.
Several men drew close and hurled their spears at me. They pierced straight through my cloak and scratched my bones with an awful scraping sound.
I turned my back on the oncoming army and ran away, all too aware of how near the horsemen were. More spears struck me from behind.
Had I been made of actual flesh and blood, I would certainly have been mortally wounded. However, I hardly even felt any pain.
I yanked a spear out and held it up, throwing it like a javelin at a knight who rode in front of me. It traveled clean through his horse and struck him, sending his body to the ground.
That still left a legion of soldiers rushing after me, spears extended.
“This sucks,” I muttered to myself.
I stabbed my staff’s tip into the earth. A shadow formed around my feet and slowly expanded, swallowing the corpses of the knight and horse I’d just killed. Blood and entrails poured from their wounds; then they were lifted into the air as if by marionette strings. The other dead knights, no more than scorched skeletons, picked up their spears and ran to meet the oncoming men who’d once been their comrades.
Even this horrifying sight wasn’t enough to stop the wave of soldiers, although uncertainty and fear were evident in their faces.
The newly-revived skeleton soldiers, wrapped in shadowy tendrils, threw their spears into the ranks they’d once marched with. The spear points tore through stomachs and chests, spraying gore onto the battlefield. Screams of pure agony filled the air as weapons clanged, turning the once-tranquil hillside into a living hell. The scents of steel, rust, and blood mingled together.
When the last life was snuffed out, over a hundred mindless skeleton knights stood stock-still, their long shadows draped across the earth like grave markers. There were no voices, no cheers. The hillside was silent, save for the flutter of capes in the wind as the ghastly army stood at rigid attention.
Standing in the center, I adjusted my hood, covering my skull and the red flame that flickered within. I pulled my staff from the earth and raised it to the sky.
The skeletal soldiers formed ranks and began to march silently along the road, a silent procession of the dead.
The sun had sunk below the horizon, drenching the entire region in darkness. The only sound was the scratching of burnt bone on cobblestone.
After that, everything went fuzzy.