He froze. Though he would never admit it to himself later, hearing that dreaded voice in his ear almost made him pass out. The thought hadn't even crossed his mind that Blood Raven would simply hide behind one of the stones, and wait for him to walk by.
A plan flashed to mind. It needed a spell he hadn't been able to master, but since Blood Raven had him where she wanted him, he had little other choice.
Hoping against hope that Blood Raven couldn't see from her angle, he palmed his knife, and let the vial of poison clatter to the ground, putting up his hands, his golem crumbling into dust. Visibly, his knees began to shake, along with his voice, as he stammered, "I…I…I…this is the pppp..art where I dddd….die, iisn't it?" Blood Raven noticed a wet stain form on his pants.
"Any last words? I could write them on a piece of paper and tie it to your head when I throw it over the camp's wall." Inwardly, Blood Raven smiled. She knew full well, it was in the forefront of her mind, that she had won, that the only reason he was still alive was that her hand was holding back his death at the bowstring. She liked seeing her would be assassins broken, though, and wanted him to know it.
These were her conscious thoughts. Unconsciously, far back in the recesses of her mind, a part of her cracked an eye. A part that had been shoved back and dormant for a long, long time and had been awakened briefly when the demon searched her memory. That part looked out through her old eyes, and knew that, if only for a moment, she might reach out once from beyond her treachery, and help her old commander. The demon was paying her no mind at the moment. Mentally, she pulled a few strings, and overconfidence, the most deadly enemy of all, seeped into her mind. She toyed with him a while longer, taunts spouting out of her mouth. Inwardly, unconsciously, Blood Raven smiled.
"Or, maybe I don't need to cut off your head. I could just have you turned into a zombie, and walk you through the gate, with a bottle of poison gas for the Rogues. A necromancer, turned into a zombie. That would be fitting.", she sneered.
Rashaban put forth his best pathetic voice, "Oh, no, pp..please, have some mercy…that would be te..te..terrible…"
Blood Raven prodded the arrowhead into the back of his neck. "Looks like you should have thought of that before you tried to come kill me!"
In his head, Rashaban gritted his teeth. 'Not yet…' he thought, knowing the timing needed to be perfect, 'Not yet…'
"Or maybe," she leered, "I should take you to Andariel, and have you corrupted. Even if you won't turn, which I doubt, seeing as you're a pathetic coward, she would have her fun with you."
"Ohnohnohnohno! Not that! ANYTHING but that!" on cue, Rashaban started hyperventilating, and made as if he wanted to run with all his being, shaking uncontrollably in terror, only held back by the knowledge that there was an arrowhead at his throat. "Please, please, you mustn't! End me now!" Knowing she wouldn't, now that he had hit a nerve, he continued, in an excruciatingly remorseful voice "I…I…I..I didn't sign up for this. I don't want to die…I'll do anything you want…please….I don't want to-" With that, his legs gave out, and he fell forwards, limply.
'This is it.', he thought as the ground rushed up to meet him. 'If she isn't fooled, I'm done for. If I can't cast this spell, I'm done for.'
Blood Raven took the tension off her bow as her body curled forwards in laughter, her eyes squinted as a cackle escaped her lips. 'I've seen pathetic before, but this-', her thought was swiftly cut off.
In the time it took to fall, his mind working as fast as it possibly could, Rashaban desperately scrabbled for the spiritual reside in the ether around him, and the countless tiny fragments of men and animals long dead and gone, ground into the very stones he was about to fall on. It seemed like he was falling for an eternity, like he would never make it in time, but sheer desperation pulled him through. Wordlessly, silently, a thin, insubstantial white sheen permeated the air around him. On impulse, his right leg kicked into action, his left whipping around behind him to overbalance him. He flipped in midair, mere inches from the ground, landing hard on his back, staring up at a shocked Blood Raven, who loosed her arrow.
Without the full draw of the bow, it splayed harmlessly off of the weak shield of Bone Armor. Words flashed unbidden to Rashaban's mind, 'You throw a knife well. One day, it'll come in handy.'
With a flick of his wrist, the knife he had palmed and poisoned earlier was in his hand. Before Blood Raven could even fully draw another arrow from her quiver, Rashaban sent the dagger sliding through the air, not end over end, but straight and clear, like a dart, and it buried itself in Blood Raven's unarmored stomach. As soon as the dagger left his hand, he was scrambling to get behind another tombstone, a very angry looking golem forming from the stones behind him to cover his retreat.
"SMASH HER!!!" He screamed in terror as he scrambled along on all fours, the adrenaline flowing so thickly through his blood that he couldn't even get a hold of himself enough to mentally command his hurried, instinctive creation. All he knew was that he had just slipped by a certain death, his trick had worked by luck alone, and now he was running.
"Smash her! Smashhersmashhersmasher! Don't let her through!" he babbled, simply trying to put as much distance and cover between him and the arrow in the back he knew was coming. It wasn't until he had reached the edge of the graveyard, with no more cover left to him, that he was finally able to get a hold of himself, and stop his maddened flight. Before doing anything else, he strengthened his bone armor as best he could, and grabbed his wand. Sensing his golem was still out there, his adrenaline fed fear slid smoothly over into adrenaline fed rage. Two skeletons snapped to attention, and he marched in full view back towards her.
He caught her dodging around tombstones, still clutching her open wound, trying to evade his golem. He didn't hesitate.
With a vengeful glare, a sickly red aura surrounded Blood Raven, and the poison sucked away at her life twice as fast. "TEETH OF THE DRAGON!" he roared, putting every ounce of his crazed energy into the bolts. That all struck dead on. She was knocked back, sprawled against a tombstone, her bow flying from her hand and skittering on the stones. Stunned for the moment, she didn't even register through the haze of poison as his skeletons rushed up, pinning her arms to the stone. Rashaban strode over to her, every ounce the victor of a hard won battle, and squatted down so she was at eye level.
"Playing games cost you the battle, and I won't make the same mistake. So you just have one chance to speak. What should I tell Kayasha?"
Blood Raven smirked, the poison bringing her ever closer to death, although Rashaban could have sworn he saw a glimmer in her eye at the mention of Kayasha's name.
"Solmo asked me the same thing. I spat in his eye."
"Changed your mind?"
Blood Raven gave a wicked smile. "I hope you remember how you tricked me this day. Because I will, and next time we meet, I'm gonna tie you to a wall, and use you for target practice. I'll do the least vital organs first, and make sure you're kept alive. When you've begged, and pleaded, for real this time, for me to end your pathetic life so much that it simply gets annoying, I'll give you one in the heart and one in the head." Here, her face contorted into a sickly grimace filled with such malice that he was tempted to end it right there. "And then, just when you think it's finally over", she continued, "I'll have Andariel bring you back, and I'll do it all over again. And again. I'll keep it up until you scream for mercy, and beg to kiss my boot. You and Kayasha and that stupid Amazon, you'll all look back in horror at the day you ever crossed me."
Rashaban raised an eyebrow, and seemed lost in thought for a moment. A part of him knew that he should simply end her now, but the adrenaline flowing through him made that impossible, and drove him on to taunt his helpless opponent. "Andariel is the Maiden of Anguish…hold on….I've got it! It all makes sense now!" He slapped his forehead. "You're all masochists! That's why you're invading the land and killing everyone! It's not that you're evil or heartless, it's just the opposite! Pain makes you feel good, and you're just trying to be neighborly, and spread the love!"
In response to Blood Raven's horrible sneer, he plastered a big, fake smile on his face. "Since pain makes you feel so damn good, then how about this?"
The skeletons wrenched her arms around the wrong way, until they cracked out of their sockets. Blood Raven grimaced, but said nothing.
He bent down and removed a boot from her foot, and held it up, examining it. "But, kiss your boots? Where did that come from?"
Rashaban leered in close, the smile vanishing. "You're talking pretty high and mighty for someone with no arms and poison in their blood. I've noticed most demons talk like that when they're about to die." he snarled.
Blood Raven smiled back. "If I were you, I'd break that habit of interrogating your victims and just put them down. If you'd done that, you would have been able to go to sleep tonight without the knowledge that I'll be back as soon as Andariel finds the time in her busy schedule of slaughtering you like pigs to revive me."
Rashaban was torn. The adrenaline fueled part of him was having fun, and was about to merrily suggest that she kiss his boots, and spout off some comment about how the idea was beginning to grow on him. But another, more rational part urgently demanded that he finish this now, before he toyed with her too long, and made the same mistake she had.
Finally, he decided.
He shrugged, and again plastered the fake smile back on his face. "Well, if that's the case, I've had a lovely time here with you, and I'm sure we can meet again. Bye."
Blood Raven's response was cut off as the golem's fist smashed her head into a pulp against the stone.
Her spirit could barely be seen rising as an outline, and he couldn't tell if she was glaring at him with hate or smiling.
Rashaban's fake smile soon fell from his face, and it took on a look of disgust.
He shook his head and muttered, "Masochists…" to himself, as he went to look for his dropped knife and crossbow.
Kara was sitting by the fire enjoying a nice dinner Warriv had fixed. She had spent to morning venting her anger at the Necromancer's impertinence, then had consoled herself with the thought that Kayasha had most likely chewed him out about it. She had spent the rest of the day hard at work on her technique, and had thinned out the beastmen far past Kayasha's expectations.
Around dusk, she saw the Necromancer saunter into the camp, his minions in tow. He walked straight up to Kayasha's tent. Kara turned back to her food and paid him no mind.
Kayasha came and sat by the fire a short time later, saying, "But, you see, I need proof."
"Proof?!" Rashaban sputtered, and his voice rose. "She nearly killed me! If she hadn't been so intent on toying with me, I'd be dead! And when I finally managed to subdue her, I had to sit through a rant about how she was going to kill us all slowly, and how I was going to kiss her boot. Look, here's her brains on my golem, see?"
Kayasha did not look convinced.
Rashaban rolled his eyes, "Look, I guess, I've got…oh here", he rummaged in his pack. "Her boot!"
Kayasha's face twitched. "Her boot?"
"Yeah, she kept going on and on about how once she killed us a certain number of times, we would have to kiss her boot." he shook his head. "Masochists are an odd lot. Anyway, it's hers."
Kayasha took it skeptically, and gasped when she saw a familiar mark. "It is hers! I remember when she got that burn mark on them!"
"That's what I've been trying to tell you!"
Kayasha's face wore an unreadable look. "I suppose we should thank you…although I don't much like to think of it…"
Seeing her distress, Rashaban waved his hand, as if to wave her concern away. "Oh, don't worry about losing her. She insisted she would be back."
"What?!"
"Yeah. Let's see…how did she put it…as soon as Andariel can spare a moment from killing you pigs, she'll bring me back to life, and then you won't sleep very well. Or something to that effect, anyway."
Kayasha looked torn.
Rashaban smiled, "Don't worry about it! We'll kill Andariel, and you'll get your second in command back!"
Kayasha looked at him, her eyes flashing full of hope for an instant. "Are you sure?"
Rashaban looked at the ground, "Well, no…but I guess that's how these things work…"
Kayasha stood and blinked for a moment, then snorted and walked off.
"Hey! Don't I get a reward?!", he snapped back, as soon as he saw she was leaving.
Kayasha stopped and said in a monotone, without even turning. "Rashaban has killed Blood Raven. All hail Rashaban. He has the undying gratitude of the Rogues."
Then she walked off. Several Rogues laughed at Kayasha's response, then came up and congratulated him. Kara just glared. She had been out there sweating all day, and now suddenly that unhelpful clown was the center of attention.
She sighed, and supposed that, for all his arrogance, he had done something.
Rashaban went to bed soon after, completely exhausted and shaking a bit from the huge adrenalin let down. He knew full well he had squirmed his way out of that because Blood Raven had simply wanted to torture him. Trying to think over what his weaknesses were, he found a long list. He had managed to throw that knife well enough, but he simply wasn't fast enough. The only solution, he knew, was more practice. He resolved to be up early the next morning. He would not let that weakness get the better of him again.
