The Funeral
Paige clutched her mentor's face tightly against her chest and stared into the embers of a dying fire. Her body involuntarily rocking back and forth as she tried to smooth his hair back. She had never seen someone so still before. The death she had encountered was usually full of blood, mud, sweat and anguished cries of men that seemed to follow them for days. Not like this. Not like a child while they slept. She punched his chest as tears smeared her face with the ashes of their campfire. She didn't stop until her hands were raw and bleeding. He was all she had left, and now she had nothing.
The sun came up as she stripped the armor from his body and fed more wood to the fire. She wanted it to glow high into the heavens. To let every kingdom under the skies feel her loss. When it licked the sky, she said a silent prayer to the creator and threw his body into the flames. No wolves would feast on his corpse tonight. Or ever. As his body returned to the earth from where it was birthed, she secured his armor over her body. He had been small for a man and she had been too large for a girl. Because of this, they wore the same clothes. They even had the same hair, cut severely at the forehead and past their chins with his sword. She had been his mirror image. They were one and the same. Until now… when there was only one left. Never had the world been more cruel and lonely than it had been today.
By the time she was finished gathering her things, the sun was at its highest point in the sky and still his body kept burning. She stared into it, as if she were staring into death itself. Daring the lord of the underworld to come and take her too. To finish the job. But all she saw were the ravens as they flew through the flames. It startled her so much that she fell to the floor. She was so startled when one of them made a small sound that sounded like it was asking for help that she couldn't move. When it landed on her knee, tilted its head and looked at her she understood. These were no ordinary ravens; they were too close to the ground, too deep in the forest for this to be anything but the work of a wizard. Instinct told her to run back home but logic reminded her that she no longer had a home. Samuel had been her home. And now there was no more Samuel. No more her. No more anything but the call of the ravens.
So she made a decision. She nodded her consent to be led into the unknown. The ravens gathered around her, watching as she gathered her pack, grabbed her shield and strapped his sword to her hip. When this was done she went straight to where the ravens led.
The Wizards
"Lucas, we really could use your help right now." Emily shouted as she slammed two hammers the size of fists against each other. The vibrations crated a small wave that crashed against the dwarf skeletons, pulverizing them back into oblivion. "You think I'm not trying to decipher what the ancient tomes say? These things take time Emily. Especially when you're trying not to get killed by things that should already be dead." He shouted back exasperated. Narrowly avoiding the swing of a sword aimed at his head. "Well. Read. Faster." Mona's sentences were punctuated by rocks exploding as they hit their targets. "You're our dungeon master for a reason, so please don't let us down. I would like to live long enough to use all the loot we found in that cave."
While Lucas switched between leather bound journals with pages as ancient as the creator himself, trying to find the answer to their predicament, dwarf skeletons kept pouring out of the cave. Sweeping through the forest in pursuit of their prey. "Lucas… I don't really want to trouble you or anything while you're off reading in the shade and relaxing… but I really need to restore my soul to my body before it permanently detaches from my being… so…" Emily nodded as she put the twin hammers behind her back, into the leather notches that kept them in place and took out a bigger pair of hammers. "I can hold them off, but only for a little bit. Will that give you enough time to regenerate?" Mona shrugged as she called the ravens back into her body. "I don't know, but we don't have much of a choice, do we now?" When the last fragment of her soul flew into her, she became as defenseless as Lucas normally was. She grabbed her magic staff from her belt and it expanded to its full length. It was all that would come between her and certain death. But to use her power longer than 12 candle notches meant that her soul would be easier to destroy because it would forever remain outside her body.
Emily kept smashing her hammers against each other, creating waves of sound strong enough to send the dwarf skeleton back to the underworld, where they belonged. But there were so many of them and her arms were so tired from both the weight of the hammers and their constant slamming that she didn't know how long she would be of any use. Sweat dripped down her face and hit the ground. She didn't want to be the reason why they perished but it seemed like the number of dwarf skeletons kept on swelling. Regardless of how many they sent back to their graves again.
The Sparks
After another half candle notch Lucas had failed to come up with an answer, Mona was still regenerating and Emily was exhausted. Just when she wanted to give up a hammer slipped from her hand. As if sensing her intentions. The world slowed down around her. Knowing what was about to happen but powerless to stop it. She didn't catch it as it was falling and by the time she tried to shout a warning to her friends, it hit the ground. The waves it sent through the earth made it feel as solid as water and everyone, including Emily, was thrown to the ground, buried beneath layers of dust and small rocks. Causing her to lose her grip on the second hammer. As it hit the ground, another earthquake shook them, this time, the earth split wide open. Emily scrambled to regain control of her hammers, crawling on the ground, but a dwarf skeleton lifted its sword and aimed for her head.
She swore she already felt the lord of the underground reach up for her soul when she saw sparks before her eyes. The sound that cut through the air was different than the one her hammers made, but it was unmistakable. A grunt was followed by the sound of a sword hitting a shield and then a sword breaking bone, breaking metal. The dwarf skeleton fell into a pile of bones. As Emily looked up, to thank her savior, she was struck by his beauty. He was unlike any of the knights they had met before. His skin was the color of milk, his hair brown, tinged with fire and even though he was skilled with a sword, he wasn't brutish. He was graceful, like the dancers she had once seen in a faraway land that had such wonders as men that ate fire and people who walked on wires high above their heads.
This knight brought swift death upon the undead. Giving Emily ample time to grab her hammers and join him.
The Damned
As the hordes of undead began to dwindle down, Emily had retired her large hammers and settled for the fist sized ones she usually carried. Their need wasn't as dire as before, not when they had a new member to their party. Mona had been able to dispose of one skeleton all on her own. But mostly she was relegated to guarding Lucas' back because they were both equally defenseless. She without her powers and he had only the ones in his mind. He was a brilliant strategist but was unfortunately as strong as an elven child. He could wield no weapon mightier than his ancient tomes, and so, his fate would have been to be locked up in a library. To grow old along with the yellowing pages of the books he loved to read. Until he met up with a warlock and a destroyer that forever changed his life. Now he was their strategist and advisor, a dungeon master as they were colloquially known in The Old World, from where Emily was from. Mona called him a glorified librarian because there was no word for his kind of talent in The Heartland.
With a mighty swing of her sword, Paige killed the last dwarf skeleton. Her heavy breathing failing to return to normal. She was beyond exhaustion. She had lost her only family and now she had seen something unheard of in The Andeans. The dead stayed dead. They didn't sprout up from the earth like fresh crops. Before she could wrap her mind around such a thing, a hand rested on her armor and without thinking she pointed her sword at the neck of its owner. "I mean you no harm. I only wish to thank you for your aid." Emily said quickly before stepping back. With her hammers safely stored, her hands would be no match for a skilled swordsman. "You. The raven haired beauty. You're a wizard, are you not? The ravens, they were your creation." Emily blushed. Both at being thought of as beautiful and at her foolishness for not having realized that the brave knight was not a man, but a woman.
"No. Those were my ravens and I am no wizard. I am a warlock." Mona said as the staff she carried hit the sword and ravens flew from her body, creating a barrier between Emily and this new dangerous stranger. "Why did you summon me here then, warlock?" Paige asked, trying not to sound as scared as she felt. She didn't know the difference between a wizard and a warlock but she knew that steel could only fight against steel. Magic was something she could never defeat. Mona laughed. "My ravens only lead the willing. Answer me this little man dressed in tin, why did you want to be led away?" The ravens disappeared in a cloud of black smoke and Paige blinked. Staring, once again at Emily. "I follow no one but my master. Since he is dead. I am my own master. I am a freed from my debt. And since I was not summoned then I can turn away." Paige slipped the sword into its scabbard and as she was leaving Emily shouted at her.
"Wait." Paige stopped but didn't turn around. "Join us then. If you are a free agent as you say, bound by no master, then let us use your steel against steel." Lucas and Mona tried to object but it was too late. Emily had taken a small coin purse from her belt and threw it at Paige. To her credit she caught it without having to turn back. The contents of the purse stunned her. She had never known there to be so much gold. It filled the small coin purse up to the top. This was enough to be a real knight, not just the squire she had turned into. She turned around and nodded. Emily smiled. Relived that this brave new stranger would stay.
"I'm Emily." She quickly said, anxious to introduce herself. She never put much weight in scrolls of prophecy before, but this seemed like a perfect moment to become a believer. "I'm Paige." Mona scoffed. "That's not a name, that's an occupation." Paige shrugged. "It is the only name I know. I was given to Sir Samuel Clairvaux, knight of The Royal Dquree Army from The Andeans as a way to repay my father's debt. I have no name. I was a page for 14 years, and by the time I became a squire to my master, it was too late to call me anything else. You can let me answer to my name or you can let me have my gold and be on my way. My debt is paid both to him and to you. You have your lives and I have my gold." Emily rolled her eyes at Mona and jabbed her side with her elbow. "Forget about Mona, her tongue is as wicked as a thousand arrows. This is Lucas, he's our dungeon master." Mona scoffed at this. "More like meek librarian. He didn't even participate in the battle… which by the way, thanks. We totally did not want to live."
Lucas pushed his hair back as he smiled. "Be ready to feast on your words Mona, for I have found an answer to ou- Oh." He stopped smiling and frowned at the text before him. "What? What is it?" Mona and Emily echoed as they stepped closer. "Well… the heavens smile upon us for once the resurrected skeletons are killed, they remain in the underworld… as they were before." The three girls nod at this. Already aware of the fact that they would not reanimate again and again in an eternal struggle against death. "However, as long as we keep the box with the skull within our possession, the necromantic symbols spell out our doom. For they summon all corpses, fresh and ancient, to us. Calling out for help from the underworld to be taken back to the lord of the dead himself… it is cursed and the only one who can break such a curse is a skilled necromancer. For only he who is the rightful owner of the gift of resurrection, knows how to wield the power of life and death. And only he can restore the balance we have disturbed."
Their shoulders dropped. Emily closed her eyes. She knew now that with certain death in the balance, only a fool would stay with them. When she turned over to face Paige, to thank her for helping them out of this jam, her heart beat as if the hammers of destruction were crushed against her chest. Paige didn't look scared. She looked as if she would follow her into the underworld itself just to stay by her side. "Should we hurry then?" Was all Paige said and Emily blushed as she smiled and pushed her hair back. Glad, for once, to be stuck in a mess of their own doing. Never had she been happier that they had been too distracted by the rewards at the end of their quest to think of the consequences in the beginning. Because this one time the scrolls of fate had been decidedly on her side.
Author's Note: "Dungeons and Dweebs" prompted this Fantasy A/U and I'm not even ashamed of how much I love this universe.