Champions' Calling
Thirtieth Day of the Fourth Month 294 AC
The Praetori stood tall and they stood unafraid of the vengeful dead. They would not waver and they would not fall, even in the wake of the deadly curse. Why should they, those who had trained against the black-armored knights driven by minds far more ancient and a will far colder? The captain and the squad-leader, veterans both long ere they had sworn to the Dragon and taken on the gifts of flesh and fire, charged as one.
Blades wrought in devil's blood and dragonfire fell upon the creature with no flesh and no bones to bind it, yet the blows fell true, driven by skill and dedication, and the dead howled in pain. Yet giant of blood moved aside with lurching unnatural swiftness, for it had not flesh to bind it, no tendons to constrain it, no bones to weigh it down. The squad leader struck with all his fury and all his strength, but the blade cut naught but air, carving into the stone of the corridor with a screech of metal parting stone as though the keep itself were wounded.
Not quite swift enough. As the thing spilled aside, fetid blood parted under Captain Zhisnos's blade swifter by far than his spear had ever been when he had been counted among the Unsullied, and in a moment all was crimson. Had a stranger passed that way by some mischance, they might almost have struggled to tell Preatori from wight, living from undead, but they knew their brothers and sisters true. All had been reborn of blood and sorcery just as their foes had been. All had been touched by the dread magics of Valyria, of which men spoke in hushed whispers if they spoke of them at all. But they were not beasts or slaves, such as the flesh-smiths of old had wrought. They were something far more terrible let loose upon the ridge of the world. On the next exchange the two veterans tore the thing apart even as its 'fists' sent Zhisnos' head ringing with a parting blow. The flames of healing beckoned, but the wound was not quite grave enough to mend. There was a battle yet to be fought.
The walls that Maegor built shook with the roar of focused fury and echoed the sounds of snapping bone under blows heavy enough to wound a giant. Unnatural vigor and deathless strength met the skill of those who had been trained in the slaying of foes stronger and tougher than even their sorcery-infused bodies. Half the wights fell in moments, a crushed head, a snapped neck, and for one a chest entirely torn asunder by three near-perfect blows that sent shards of bone flying though the air like pellets from a Lhazareen sling.
The dead kept coming. Even as the surviving trio of wights sought to drag down a single Praetori only to be met by the scything blows of the warrior and her fellows, two more corpses clambered over the rubble from the passage gaping like the maw of hell.
How many of them were there? Where were they coming from, and why the hells were they here? All these thoughts and more passed through Zhisnos' mind as he turned to fight a particularly deformed toothless corpse, but for now, for now it did not matter. What mattered was the one lesson he had learned in Meereen that served him well as a freedman. It is a warrior's place to endure, to ensure until the enemy breaks. Though the dead would not run and they would not falter at the sight of their fellows' plight, they could still be broken...
One
Piece
At a Time
Moments congealed and lurched past as the entire world narrowed down to that bloody corridor, to dead things scratching and clawing at steel until they could finally grasp hold of flesh. They did not find it as tender as they might have hoped, nor the bones of their prey so easy to snap as they might have wished. The enemy healed slowly, the blood that covered them from head to toe seeping into wounds, the Preatori healed swiftly in flashes of golden fire and hidden sorcery. In the end, however, what doomed the accursed get of Maegor's work was that they fought merely to kill, caring not one whit if others of their numbers fell where their living foes fought with valor and with skill for the honor of the company and the Imperium entire.
The last wight died with a hacking curse upon its withered lips and only then did Captain Zhisnos realize that the twelve Praetori had killed twice their number in wights without suffering a single causality. Oh, they had bled aplenty, mingling their blood with the fetid ichor of the enemy, not not a single one of them had given way even in death.
A weary arm was finally left to rest, a blade clinked against stone as he closed his eyes in thought. He did not pray to the Lady of Spears, he did not pray at all. His skill, his magic, his purpose, gifts of the Imperator, yes, but ones given into his keeping for the betterment of all, these had served him well.
He did not stay silent long, "Alright, you lot, you know the drill. Earth spirits for scouting caves and crannies. You three over there, start staking the bodies for burning. We can bag the ash to take to the forge..."
OOC: And there you have it, took a lot of rolling, but it was a fun fight. Probably about the limit of what you can deal with with just standard D&D fighting rules. We do need that mass combat overhaul.
