In the morning, she was about to go and give Rashaban a piece of her mind, but the Rogue had informed Kayasha, and she was waiting. She didn't care whether or not Rashaban had helped, it was just a small-scale raid, and wizards supposedly needed their sleep or they didn't regain their mana. She just didn't want any trouble. "Kara. Just who I wanted to see.", Kayasha smoothly intercepted her. "Since you proved so useful last night, I have some raids for you to go on." A half an hour later, Kara stalked out of the camp, half impressed with herself for gaining Kayasha's attention, and half still mad at the worthless Necromancer, to raid the beastmen for the day.
Rashaban woke up late, since his rest the night before had been disturbed. As he sat warming himself up by the fire, a Rogue ran into camp, heaving for breath and yelling between gasps for Kayasha. Rashaban was about to get up and find her, but she appeared from behind a tent and rushed up to her breathless comrade. As they whispered, Kayasha's face became stony. Rashaban walked up, but kept his distance until the Rogue had walked away. "Any of my business?", he asked
"Blood Raven is back. Go ask Akara if you want to know, I'm not in the mood to enlighten you.", Kayasha snapped, and headed off.
Rashaban was confused. He yelled back to her retreating form, "What? Who are these people?"
Kayasha glared back, then her gaze softened, and she said, "Oh, right, you don't know Akara. Come with me."
She led him to a far corner of the camp that he had never been to, and indicated a large tent. "She's our priestess." Then, Kayasha turned and was gone, the stony look back on her face.
Rashaban shrugged and entered the tent. A wizened crone in a purple robe sat mixing some potions. "The Necromancer, I presume?", she said without looking up from her work.
"That's me. Kayasha said to tell you that Blood Raven is back, and for you to give me the story on her."
Akara looked up from her work, and said, "There's not much to tell. Blood Raven was Kayasha's second in command at the time the Dark Sisters turned traitor, and she went with them. When Solmo found her, she was at the old cemetery, making zombies. I can only assume she is in the same place."
Rashaban nodded. He didn't know much about the Dark Sisters, and didn't really care to, but he knew he should get all the information that he could. "What can you tell me about them?"
"They deserve to die.", Akara said bluntly. "And that is all. For each traitor you kill I will consider healing you once."
"I meant any useful information. What are they weak against? How powerful are they? Did they keep their abilities as Rogues?"
"I do not wish to discuss those traitors.", Akara said bluntly. "All you need to know is that they need to die."
Rashaban's face contorted into a glare. "For all your hatred of them, you aren't being very helpful."
Akara looked up at him, and her face softened for a moment. "I'm sorry. You've just hit a nerve."
"I can see that."
"Well, I don't want to discuss them, but is there anything else I can do for you?"
Rashaban eyed the potions along the wall, thinking he might have found a solution to his lack of power.
After making a deal for some mana potions and stocking up on crossbow bolts, Rashaban set out. It took an hour of walking to get to the cemetery, steering clear of most of the patrols. Once he found it, he sized up the situation from the trees. It didn't look good.
Blood Raven was clearly visible in the center, with a host of zombies surrounding her. She seemed to be working on making more. Rashaban wished he knew more about his enemy, how powerful she was, and whether she had summoned those zombies herself or was just controlling them. If she was just controlling them, then he could pick them off without her knowing, but if she had summoned them herself, then she would know the instant they were attacked. There was only one way to be sure. He summoned skeletons and a golem, then unslung his new crossbow. He ratcheted back the string, fitted a bolt, aimed for a zombie, and fired.
And missed by a mile. Blood Raven hadn't even noticed. Cursing, he decided he needed a bit more practice. And more meant any at all. He slunk away undetected, and spent the next two hours getting to know his crossbow. By the time he was done, even though he wasn't a good shot by any means, he at least could get his shot close to his target, and was pretty sure he could to some damage to a crowd of zombies.
He got back to his original hiding spot undetected, and got off a lucky shot at a zombie. It went down, and Blood Raven didn't even flinch. A smile crossed his face. Not only did she not know when they were being attacked, but that also meant she couldn't tell which ones were hers. Another plan had come to mind.
Rashaban threw his cloak over one of his skeletons, and positioned his golem and remaining skeleton strategically among the trees. Ducking under the cloak behind his skeleton, he hoped Blood Raven wasn't paying too much attention.
He made sure the skeleton shambled like a zombie, and he was sure to wander about randomly, matching his footsteps to his minion's to make sure he didn't draw too much attention. He was in luck; Blood Raven was bent over the ground examining some graves, and had no idea that he was lurking around.
His seemingly meandering path soon took him close. Not wanting to get too close and lose his element of surprise, Rashaban decided that seven yards would be just close enough for him to hit, and just far enough away to avoid suspicion. He positioned himself so that her back was to him, then, not wanting to give himself away with the sudden ceasing of footsteps, he crouched and had his skeleton move on, so that the cloak slipped off him as it slowly advanced. He lined up his shot carefully and quickly, and pulled the trigger.
Blood Raven coldly examined the names on the graves, seeing if any rung a bell in her twisted, suppressed memory as anyone worthy of housing a zombie champion. As she unwillingly sifted through the tangled morass of her old recollections, she recalled her old training. She recalled her old danger sense, that inexplicable warning bell that sounded just before an impending surprise attack.
She realized it was ringing.
Without thought, she rolled to the side, as a crossbow bolt slid effortlessly through the air and her trailing cloak, where her back had been, moments before.
Rashaban made a mental note that, apparently, he was bad at assassinations. Cursing, he ordered his hidden minions to attack, and his decoy skeleton to rush in front of him.
None too soon, as two arrows pierced it. Rashaban backpedaled behind his failing decoy, frantically pumping his crossbow for another shot. He looked through his other minions' eyes for a moment, and saw that they were doing quite well, even outnumbered, against Blood Raven's suddenly vicious force of zombies.
He jumped behind a gravestone as Blood Raven shot another arrow, this one ending his skeleton and putting another hole in his cloak and it fluttered to he ground. He whipped around his cover and fired again, but he wasn't even aiming, just trying to keep her from charging him. Impatiently, he gulped down a mana potion and raised another skeleton. He had hoped to end this quickly, with one shot, but now that plan was ruined. He had no illusions about being able to out shoot her after practicing with his crossbow for only a few hours. 'Why did I come so unprepared?', he mentally snapped at himself. "I should have brought an Amazon." he muttered.
Forcefully shoving those thought from his mind, he scrambled for a way to get back on top of the situation. First, was her minions. If he could get rid of those, he would have an edge. He sent his minions to ignore Blood Raven and attack the zombies. None were coming for him, yet, and he saw that Blood Raven was distracted as well.
He popped around from his cover and planted a nearby zombie with a crossbow bolt. He counted around thirty more, and winced as Blood Raven ended another skeleton. But, Blood Raven's minions were no match for Rashaban's, and he could easily summon more in this zombie filled area. He raised his hand and a replacement skeleton burst forth from the corpse of a zombie, headed for the melee as soon as it rose. Rashaban popped around his cover once more and plugged another zombie, keeping a wary eye on Blood Raven.
'At this rate,' he thought to himself, 'I can't lose'.
He raised another skeleton to replace the most recent one Blood Raven had taken down, and shot again.
'Then what?', he asked himself.
'Then…I'll…send in my minions, and they'll make short work of her.'
'Not at the rate she's going through them,' he replied, as another skeleton went down.
'My golem', he responded in annoyance as he raised another. 'It hasn't fallen yet.'
'It can't catch her, it's too slow."
His crossbow was primed again. 'Well… I'll think of something. First things first.' he thought as he raised his weapon once more.
Blood Raven left just enough time in between cutting down the Necromancer's minions to give him a false sense of security. She wanted him to think that his skeletons could take multiple shots, and that his golem was invincible. She was also willing to sacrifice her worthless zombies if it made her foe even the slightest bit overconfident, for that would be his undoing.
It wasn't long before Rashaban watched his minions slice down the last of the zombies. He snapped out of cover, a bolt at the ready and hoping she would be close enough for him to get a good shot, but Blood Raven was nowhere to be found. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted a flash of red slipping between the tombstones. He cursed. Her minions were gone, but if he left his cover, he would be an open target. If he stayed where he was, he was a sitting duck.
Straining his eyes to catch another flash of red, he saw one and shot, but he was far too late, and his bolt clattered harmlessly among the tombstones. Quickly shifting his gaze back to where he had seen the flash, he set his crossbow down. There was one way he could shoot at her, with his teeth spell, but he knew it was still weak. He was tempted to go hunting after her; surely he would have a better chance in close combat.
He winced as an arrow shot from nowhere and ended a skeleton. Before he could even raise another, the same fate befell his remaining one. 'No point using them,' he thought.
Sliding around his cover, he ordered over his golem for a mobile shield. 'Let's see how well those arrows shoot through rock.', he smirked.
He slowly advanced around the graveyard, making sure to stay low, with a tombstone at his back and his golem to the front.
"I'd like to see you shoot me like this!", he called out. "Why don't you just show yourself, and we'll settle this the old fashioned way! There's no way to shoot through my golem!"
No response.
Shrugging, Rashaban continued his slow search. He knew full well he would never find her this way, but, eventually, her demonic bloodlust would drive her out.
As he turned behind a particularly high tombstone, confident that Blood Raven couldn't shoot him in the back through the solid stone, he remembered that his dagger wasn't poisoned. As he fiddled with it, keeping a watchful eye out for flashes of red among the stones, he heard a chilling voice in his ear, "Checkmate, Necromancer."
