Rosethorne smiled behind her helmet. She could hear the telltale sounds of the bone caterpillars arriving. She truly hated not being involved in the slaughter of the Immaculate fools who dared try to take back this backwater town, but the bone caterpillars had this irritating tendency to attack anything alive, which included Abyssals.
She heard the screams of anguish and surprise as the one bone caterpillar reared up on each side of the canyon, smelling for blood. They did a sinuous, snake-like dance before racing down the sides, straight at the Immaculate force. She began to hear the screams as the bone caterpillars hungrily began devouring her foes one at a time, in a vain attempt to clothe their bony limbs with flesh once again.
She raised her sword, and signaled for her skeleton archers to fire another volley at the fool to had dared foil her ambush. What disturbed her slightly is that she could have sworn she saw the glint of gold from that meddler's forehead. She hadn't seen the telltale sign of the golden Solar anima that accompanied the normal Solar Caste Mark, so he probably wasn't one. He was probably dead now, as she had seen him dive into a bush like a coward, but it was best to be sure by sending a few volleys of arrows at the bushes where he hid.
She raised an eyebrow as some of the Dragon-Blooded began attacking the bone caterpillars viciously. She smiled. Due to how they were constructed, as long as one link was connected to another, a bone caterpillar would continue moving and devouring. She frowned slightly as the Dragon-Blooded, with their weak animas flaring, figured this out and struck down segment after segment. Both were half-gone now, and rapidly growing smaller. She decided that her waiting was over, and charged her warstrider toward the Immaculate force.
For this kind of fighting, being mounted would prove to be as much a liability as an asset, and so she leapt high from her warstrider once it was close enough, and dove into the Immaculate force, striking down two as she landed.
The Dragon-Blooded were tougher than the ones she normally slew, but not by too much. Two rapid strikes dispatched them. This slowed her down, but with each arrogant Dragon-Blooded that fell, their morale dropped just a little bit more as she tore through them like a hungry and bloody tornado.
She noticed idly that night was beginning to fall, which made her smile. The thrice-accursed sunlight would finally dim, and her enemies would know truly that these were their last hours of life. She fought more and more fluidly as the light dimmed, being more and more comfortable in the descending darkness.
She was beginning to taste their fear now, even from the normally haughty Dragon-Blooded. She decided to terrify them further, just as the sun dipped below the horizon. She channeled her essence through her anima.
Her Caste Mark burned and bled into existence behind her helmet, as shadows gathered around her to alternately hide her and make her appear much larger. Ghostly ice-blue sheets of light began streaming around her, mingling with the nearly tangible shadows. She could now taste the Immaculate army's fear was threefold, and she dove to attack once more, their fear making her strike all the harder and more hungrily.
One thing she despised about the surface world was that she couldn't regain her essence as she normally would, in the cool, comforting gloom of the Underworld. So, she had learned to take it by force, in the form of wounds on any being with Exalted essence within them, which included the Dragon-Blooded.
With each blow struck, she felt stronger, as she drew essence from their wounds and into her body. She began using her more terrifying killing arts, becoming a blur of soulsteel on the darkened canyon floor.
The formerly large expeditionary force of the Immaculate fools had dwindled into a small group of terrified soldiers, knowing that they were fighting for their very lives, and as some suspected correctly, their very souls as well.
Her eyes narrowed as she faced the far canyon mouth, as she saw that Immaculate reinforcements had arrived. She'd lost only a quarter of her force in the last battle that even now was concluding with gurgling screams. The undead don't tire thankfully, so she was not unduly worried about how long her troops had been fighting. However, though the group approaching was half the size of the one she and her army had slaughtered, this one appeared to be comprised entirely of Dragon-Blooded troops.
She smiled behind her helmet now. This meant she could drain the essence from their bodies and keep using it nearly to slay them in a beautifully predatory cycle. How utterly fitting, she thought, as she charged at them.
She saw one of the Immaculates in the front of the army raise her hands, and point an outstretched palm at her. Obsidian butterflies of various sizes began flying from her palm toward Rosethorne. She was surprised to see the first of them actually make a small dent in her armor, and began parrying furiously. She was struck a few times when she failed to parry a razor-winged obsidian butterfly, but was unhurt. Unhurt, but very angry. She charged at them once more, and slew the sorceress with the first strike, and continued on through the ranks. Trails of essence, glowing visibly in the darkness, flowed visibly into her from the ones she wounded and slew. These troops appeared to be stronger and more experienced than the ones she fought before, and now that they had gotten over their initial shock, were fighting back with unbridled ferocity.
They attempted to surround her with their useless Speardancers, but she evaded this rather obvious ploy. Her troops had now caught up with her, and began attacking the Immaculate force. Now that she had slain the sorceress they had, and the troops they had in front, she would allow her force to crush them.
She leapt backwards, flipping gracefully through the air to land behind the last of her troops, and extinguished her anima, rendering her nearly invisible in the darkness. She began to channel her fully-replenished essence to make her troops fight faster, harder, and be able to resist damage a bit more than their undead frames already could. She smiled in satisfaction as her troops began hitting the Immaculate fools in waves, cutting them down slowly, but surely.
She heard one of the Dragon-Blooded shout something in a language she didn't recognize, and the ones in front darted back a couple yards. Her undead army began charging forward to close the gap. She saw with alarm that a second sorcerer had cast that same accursed spell, filling the night canyon air with razor-winged obsidian butterflies once again, which began shredding her troops. They fought gamely on, but the butterflies kept coming, taking off limbs, heads, and tearing through armor with appalling ease. She signaled her archers to fire in volleys, cursing herself for getting carried away in the battle and forgetting about them.
She ran back into the fray, and noticed that half of her force had been cut down by those damnable butterflies, and she was even more angry at herself for not staying in the fray, as she should have done. She began fighting like a bloody typhoon unleashed on the Immaculate troops, striking with celerity and fury.
She didn't see the giant mace that hit her, but she certainly felt it as she soared backwards. She tried to land on her feet, but hit the canyon wall too quickly, and slid to the canyon floor below.
She drifted in and out of consciousness, seeing her troops beaten back into unmoving corpses once more. She heard shouts from the Dragon-Blooded. "Find that dark-armored one who slew so many of us! That one will pay with blood!"
She felt arms pick her up and fold her over someone's shoulder, and then steps that jarred her stomach as her captor ran. She managed to tilt her head to the side, and saw that whoever it was, this person wasn't wearing armor, and she was being carried away from the Dragon-Blooded.
Darkness claimed her, and she knew no more.