Dev redoubled his efforts trying to use his speed and mobility to gain the edge over the Orc’s greater size and superior armor. Growling like a feral animal, the former knight launched an offensive, battering the orc’s sword and armor with blow after blow of his own heavy blade, searching for an opening. But the orc fought with the pent up fury and determination of a caged animal; a fury that had been un-vented for six long years of degrading servitude. Krog swept the human’s sword aside and jumped into his own offensive flurry.
Unbeknownst to either of the battle maddened combatants, a single skeletal warrior had detached itself from the rest. It stood looking at the druidess’ abandoned staff in rapt amazement staring at the dark green light flaring from the end as if hypnotized. Something called out to the long dead being’s damned soul crooning insistently overriding the commands from its summoner. Casting its shield aside the un-dead creature slowly reached for the staff, it opened and closed its mouth and cocked its head mechanically. Ragged pieces of rotten flesh hung from its skeletal arm as it extended its bony fingers.
At first contact the flame at the enchanted staff’s tip flared brightly green light traveled down the creature’s arm and spread to envelope its whole bony frame. Brilliant light seemed to gather and roil in the thing’s empty chest cavity. The ancient warrior threw its head back and silently screamed its pain before exploding in a flash of brilliant green flame. Flaming bits of bone and armor flew in every direction; each particle burning so hot that it was completely reduced to smoking ashes within seconds; even the pieces that fell in the thick sewer water were completely consumed.
The brilliant light from the explosion momentarily blinded the two combatants further down the tunnel and then the following repercussion sent Dev slamming into the orc driving the wind from both their lungs. Shaking his head and gasping for breath, the former knight disentangled himself from his hairy opponent and stood sword at the ready trying to blink away the stars obscuring his vision.
At first Dev couldn’t locate his fierce opponent until he almost tripped over the orc’s prone form lying in the muck at the bottom of the sewer. Its crude demon head bronze helmet was dented and blood leaked from under the neck guard. Dev poked the bull orc with his sword, and the large creature groaned and stirred causing the former knight to raise his sword for the killing blow. But something stayed his hand; something deep within Dev screamed through the battle madness and blood lust.
“Honor and my knight’s oath,” Dev said aloud as the blood lust faded leaving an adrenaline headache in its wake. His oath as a knight would not even allow him to kill a defenseless orc. He stood over the unconscious beast realizing for the first time that he had been separated from his companions. Head pounding, breathing heavily and bleeding from a dozen minor wounds, Dev looked around him as if seeing his surroundings for the first time. He then sat down heavily on the walkway to contemplate his next course of action and his current situation.
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