AN: Really? A timely update? When's the last time THAT happened? I already know the answer is never. Not even once. I hope you'll forgive me for breaking the cycle for character transitions, but I'm getting towards the end of the displacement arc, and, well, I have to change things up a bit in order to get the story that I wanted. I had originally planned to include both a Kirk vs. Sif and Tarkus vs. 4 Kings in this chapter, but then I remembered plans I have for later. Instead there may or may not be a surprise waiting in the next chapter, depending on whether or not I decide it ruins a later reveal. Currently I'm leaning towards including it. But for now, as always, enjoy!
Chapter Fourteen: Spirit of Salvation
Tarkus and Kirk stood ready as three infested barbarians wielding large clubs stood down the tunnel from them. Kirk easily parried the first with his spider shield, while Tarkus took the second head on, hacking it in two with his dragon king greataxe before both stepped to face the third, which stood much further back. It made the fatal mistake of letting it's guard down to growl, and Tarkus immediately slammed his axe down on it's head, cleaving it in two vertically. The pair wordlessly nodded to each other before continuing forwards, emerging from the tunnel onto a cliff overlooking a deep canyon. Even the air here seemed healthier than the swamp that they had just emerged from, although the environment was no less hostile. The narrow footing forced the pair to carefully plant each foot as they crept towards a long wooden plank connecting the two sides of the canyon. As they reached it, Kirk being the lighter of the two men crossed first, being very careful and noting how significantly the thing bowed as he walked across. Tarkus proceeded to toss some of his gear across, including his greataxe and helmet, to reduce his weight. Kirk caught it with some difficulty, and Tarkus crossed as quickly as he could, trying to minimize the strain on the flimsy board. With both knights across safely, Tarkus slid his helmet on again and took up his greataxe as they moved towards a tower visible from this side of the rock wall - bearing the iconic architecture of New Londo. Kirk slid the key into the lock and the gate facing the valley swung open, allowing the knights to descend the stairs into the upper levels of New Londo.
It was impressive how well they had gotten to know each other in such a short time - neither of the knights needed speak even a single word in communication, moving flawlessly together as they methodically dispatched of the hollows near the entryway of the drowned city. As both knights finished, they crossed the bridge, Kirk smashing a pot to reveal a corpse bearing two transient curses as they continued on. He passed one on to Tarkus, who cast it on himself in tandem with Kirk, neither even slowing as the first of the ghosts revealed themselves. Kirk ducked under a swipe from the first's jagged blade before cutting the apparition in two, while Tarkus blocked his own opponent's incoming strike with the head of his greataxe before slamming his greataxe down on it, hacking it apart into mere mist. The pair continued through the drowned city, operating flawlessly as they navigated through ghost filled building after ghost filled building until they reached the one that they were looking for - the ruins of the royal palace. They saw the sealer, standing on the roof of the structure and watching over the city. He looked down at Kirk, his eyes giving an imposing glare at the former darkwraith.
"Ah. The legendary knight of thorns, come to rescue his comrades at long last. I'm afraid that it won't do you much good, not even with a friend. The city is sealed, and the darkwraiths are trapped within. If you wish for the key, you must pry it from the fingers of my corpse," the sealer shouted down in defiance. His voice was old and frail, but still conveyed a frightening power. This was a man prepared to fight, and a man who expected to win. Most of all, this was a man who belonged to a cause he was willing to die for. Such men were always, always dangerous. Tarkus and Kirk steeled themselves, entering the upper floor of the palace through a stone balcony. Within, they found a large room leading to a small opening at the back, with a ladder leading up to the roof. Within the room itself hovered a single ghost with red eyes - a banshee, if Tarkus had to guess. Sure enough, as the pair stepped into the room, the ghost tilted its head back and howled, creating a piercing shriek that caused other ghosts - eight in total - to appear throughout the room. Tarkus rushed the banshee, hacking at it once, and then twice, with his greataxe. No effect. Their transient curses had worn off.
"Kirk!" Tarkus shouted, making for the ladder at the back of the room. The knight of thorns got the message, having just come to a similar conclusion regarding the curses, and mounted the ladder, quickly climbing up out of the deadly room. As they emerged onto the roof, however, the pair was met with an arguably greater challenge. The sealer stood with his catalyst raised, ready for the battle to come. Kirk knew that there was no convincing him of the nobility of their cause, not with the history he bore. Instead, the knight of thorns simply raised his shield and charged.
The soul spear that followed hit Kirk with the force of a chaos demon's catalyst, and his shield didn't help. The spell punched right through his shield and armor as if they didn't exist, slamming into Kirk's arm and chest both with enough force to blow him backwards off of his feet. Tarkus, standing ready behind him, caught the knight of thorns and helped to steady him, getting him to stand on his own before buying time for the injured man to snatch his estus. Kirk did so quickly, and was back in the fight within a moment. However, the sealer had used the brief window to create a homing soulmass, his experience allowing him to summon not five but seven orbs hovering above his head. Any approach now, by either man, would be instantly lethal without the intercession of a large amount of luck.
But he hadn't accounted for both at once. Kirk and Tarkus split off, rushing the sealer from either side. His soulmasses, unsure of what to do, split off with four targeting Tarkus and three targeting Kirk. With the total power of the spell divided between the two of them, both were able to push through the impact to close the distance. They weren't counting on the sealer's melee combat skills. The tin banishment catalyst the sealer held had a wicked point, allowing the thing to double as a spear. The sealer attacked Tarkus first, stepping with his strike to avoid Kirk's own first slash. The magical nature of the catalyst allowed it to ignore Tarkus' armor just as well as a spell might, and pain erupted through the black iron knight's chest as he was impaled. The thrust failed to strike vital organs, however, and was by no means instantly lethal, giving Tarkus time to take a swallow from his own estus as the sealer turned to ward off Kirk, who slashed a second time. The sealer's left hand held a parrying dagger, and the red-robed man used it to bat Kirk's strike aside before raising his catalyst to cast another soul spear, this time at point blank. He never finished the incantation, however, as Tarkus stood up and slammed his dragon king greataxe into the sealer's back twice, with enough force to toss him to the ground. Kirk finished the man with a downwards stab, impaling the sealer through the heart. The man dissolved into souls, leaving behind naught but an old, heavy key. Kirk grabbed it, looking up.
"Shame it had to come to this. But when the choice lies between one man and an entire city, the answer is obvious," Kirk said regretfully, "Get ready to greet whoever comes. I'll unseal the city." Tarkus nodded, and the two knights turned to go.
Havel tagged the last of the most recent wave of darkwraiths with an indictment just before Solaire ran the creature through. The wraith faded into red mist, and the four men looked towards each other.
"That should be enough," Havel announced, "But which of us will go?" Havel said, taking out the orb. Each of them looked to the others with dread. Whoever used the orb would have a severe amount of pressure placed upon them - both the difficulty of success and the price of failure would be weighing them down. The other three would continue largely as they had, defending the city and tagging each wraith that arrived until the invasions ceased.
"I'll do it," Ornstein said, stepping forward and picking up the orb.
"Are you sure?" Solaire asked, "Remember that you're not as powerful as you used to be, and you're still getting used to your new body. Let me go. Please."
"I can't let you go in my stead," Ornstein replied, "I'm the only one who's sworn to the service of Gwyndolin. The orb won't work for anyone else. On top of that, I have knowledge of New Londo that no one else does - not even Havel spent the amount of time that I did in the city during the uprising." Havel nodded in confirmation, and Solaire sighed in acceptance. With that, Ornstein picked up the orb and gazed into it, willing it to draw him to do the will of Gwyndolin, the leader of the Darkmoon Blades. He felt the orb pull on him, and his vision faded to black.
The roar of water was deafening as millions of gallons of water spilled out of the sealed city into the deep canyon below. As the water drained out, Tarkus waited near the bridge into the city, where the blue phantom would appear. Sure enough, within a few minutes a grating screech sounded out as a man appeared in front of him, holding a long, sturdy spear and wearing his red hair - a shade that was hard to make out through his artificial blue aura - in a ponytail. He was clothed in a standard gambeson which bore a number of cuts in it, some which even showed through to his skin. The man was in bad shape, but Tarkus didn't recognize him - he appeared to be the red haired spearman who Kirk had mentioned the group had picked up.
The man looked up in shock, as if surprised to see him, or as if in recognition. Why was that? Then Tarkus began to connect the dots. A red ponytail, just like the plume of red hair on Ornstein's helmet. A spear, that same dragonslayer's weapon of choice. But he was the size of a man - something Tarkus could have passed off as a side effect of the orb that he hadn't anticipated - but the more significant discrepancy was the fact that he didn't have his own spear or iconic armor. Even so, he felt he had to check.
"Ornstein? Is that you?" Tarkus asked with incredulity in his voice. The man nodded the affirmative.
"By Gwyn, man. What happened to you?" Tarkus demanded, to which Ornstein mouthed something and shook his head. That was right. Phantoms couldn't talk without special magic utilized by Oolacile. He'd have to ask the dragonslayer when he got back to Lordran - if that ever happened.
"Right, well, come on," Tarkus said, gesturing across the bridge. Ornstein nodded, and charged into the city.
The city of New Londo was a mess. Ornstein had known the flood did some damage, but he had no idea that it was this extensive. On top of the smashed walls and buildings that millions of gallons of water had caused, sediment had begun to coat much of the architecture, and everything above the waterline was crumbled as well, having simply been left in disrepair for far too long. Ornstein looked down at the newly unsealed city, and watched as chaos unfolded. Hundreds of darkwraiths faded in and out of existence as they used their red eye orbs again and again - although they seemed to be taking some time to rest after each time they materialized, a probable reason for why they hadn't all invaded at once. Ornstein looked back at Tarkus, and mouthed the word "plan" to him while performing a quizzical shrug. Tarkus, fortunately, got the message and was happy to explain.
"We're just going to wade through that mess and kill as many as we can. Kirk's going to come into the fray from the other side and meet us in the middle, take some of the load off, but for the most part we're on our own. Is there an objective we're missing besides clearing out the darkwraiths?" Tarkus asked, to which Ornstein nodded.
"Alright. See if you can pantomime it or something. We'll try to get you back to Lordran as soon as possible so you can explain in depth what's going on. I assume you know?" Ornstein nodded, then continued into a series of gestures. He traced a small circle on his chest, where the darksign would have been. followed by a shrug, followed by placing his hand above his eyes and peering exaggeratedly into the distance.
"Circle on chest... the darksign! And you're confused... no, you're searching for it. It's missing? The darksign is gone?" Tarkus asked, to which Ornstein nodded, before following with another set of gestures - sliding his finger across his throat, followed by holding up four fingers, and finally tracing a circle around his forehead.
"Kill four... circle on forehead... is that a crown? Kings! Kill the four kings! We'll take care of that as soon as the darkwraiths are gone. I don't quite understand what it'll solve, but I suppose we'd need to get it done at some point anyways, or the abyss will spread out of the unsealed city. You ready?" Ornstein nodded, then readied his spear, before jumping down into the city below. He had carefully calculated his point of landing, and grinned as a darkwraith which he had seen vanishing earlier appeared right beneath him, having barely a second to react before his spear impaled the creature. The dragonslayer jumped clear of its corpse before sprinting at the next one. Behind him, Tarkus jumped into the fray, engaging a third darkwraith to the right. Ornstein couldn't afford to pay attention to that right now, instead focusing on his own battle.
The darkwraith he was charging parried his spear with its darksword before a glow formed in its ready left hand. Ornstein knew what was coming and took his right hand off of his spear, catching the wraith's wrist as it snapped up towards his neck. The strain was immense to hold the wraith at bay, but Ornstein managed it for just long enough to raise his spear in his left hand, blocking the wraith's second strike from that direction, and thrust it at the monster's chest. Unfortunately, the darkwraith's armor fulfilled it's purpose, causing the strike to clatter off the chest of the creature. Ornstein, having stepped fully into the thrust, now found the wraith inside of his reach and had no choice but to step even closer, so close that he would be inside the reach of the darkwraith's sword as well. He wrapped his arms around the darkwraith, pulling it towards him whilst grabbing his spear close to the tip with his right hand. After a few moments, he managed to locate a chink in the wraith's back armor and slam the spear through, killing it. As the wraith dropped, Ornstein snapped his spear out and reset his grip on the shaft. Almost as soon as he had, another had taken its place, swinging its sword in a complex pattern. Ornstein kicked the wraith's wrist as it brought its blade up for an uppercut, causing it to recoil, before lunging forwards with his spear. The wraith's unnatural energy shield saved it at the last minute, catching Ornstein's spear and holding it in the air just inches away from the wraith. Ornstein pulled his spear back and brought the haft up to block an overhead strike, which by some miracle didn't cut the spear despite the power of the swing. Ornstein leveraged it aside and bashed the creature in the chest with the butt of his spear, thankful that the thing couldn't quite react in time to block another strike. Ornstein quickly brought the tip around, minding the heavy armor around the chest area, and stabbed the darkwraith in its right shoulder. The spear overpenetrated, skewering all the way to his left hand, which was further forwards on the shaft, before it finally stopped. The wraith let out an unnatural scream as it dropped its sword, which Ornstein caught before it hit the ground. He brought the sword up into the armpit of the darkwraith, severing its arm the rest of the way and freeing his spear, before delivering a mighty hack to the creature's neck, decapitating it. Behind him, Tarkus was just finishing off his own third wraith, clearing the room that they had dropped into. Ornstein picked up his spear again, discarding the darksword as an unfamiliar weapon, and the pair made for the door.
Kirk hadn't realized just how many darkwraiths were in the city. He obviously hadn't been present in New Londo when it had been flooded and sealed, but he didn't think that their numbers would've spiked this much over the few months in which he had been operating in Blighttown before New Londo had been destroyed.
Well, there was nothing to be done except drop in and continue the plan. He saw the specks of Tarkus along with whichever of the four had been summoned as a blue dropping into the city from the other side, so he had no choice but to go through with it. Kirk jumped down, landing on a darkwraith which had recently reappeared from invasion, killing it instantly. The others nearby looked up, all rushing him at once. Kirk batted three strikes aside with the same shield swipe, impaling the wraith right through the throat, before yanking it sideways and decapitating it. He grabbed the darksword that was left behind, choosing it as a more vicious chopping weapon than his typical barbed straight sword, which he dropped into his bottomless box deftly before hacking at the second wraith. With the thing still unbalanced by his parry as it was, the hack got through and cut a ways into the wraith's shoulder, which, combined with the brutal yank Kirk perform immediately afterwards to get the sword out, was enough to drop it. The third wraith, however, had recovered from the parry and wouldn't be nearly as easy to kill. Kirk kicked him in the chest quickly, off-balancing him before following up with another hack with the darksword. The strike was blocked, however, by the darkwraith's art of lifedrain and held fast. Kirk knew the shield's weakness, however, having experimented with lifedrain extensively during his early years of invasions. Kirk dragged the darksword across the shield to the wraith's left hand, and the shield imploded, backfiring on the darkwraith and flinging his left arm aside. Kirk brought the darksword up again and slashed upwards, hacking through the wraith's armor, before ramming it through the gap to kill the creature. With the three wraiths in the immediate area dead, Kirk sprinted towards the center of the city, making as much noise as possible to draw the wraiths to him. The idea worked brilliantly, as Kirk watched seven darkwraiths emerge from the gloom after him. The knight of thorns turned to face them with a grin on his face - he was never one to turn down a good challenge. And this?
This was going to be fun.
Ornstein was getting better at finding the weak points in darkwraith armor. The neck just below the mask, most of the joints, as well as the point where the bone-patterned cuirass met the plackart, from a steep upwards angle. The dragonslayer used this last one to skewer another wraith - his seventh kill so far - after a somewhat lengthy engagement. Tarkus was operating far more efficiently, with his massive draconic greataxe being able to simply crush through armor in order to kill his opponents. The black iron knight sprinted past Ornstein to his left, raising his axe to kill yet another darkwraith - Tarkus' seventeenth kill, by Ornstein's count. Not knowing how many Kirk had dealt with, that left some two hundred and seventy to go. Ornstein felt the rush of air indicative of a darkwraith reappearing from an invasion just behind him, and pivoted, thrusting his spear by instinct. The darkwraith, caught completely off guard, barely managed to form it's rippling shield in time, and in desperation placed it's hand directly in front of the spear. Strangely enough, the spear penetrated into the deep red glow and created a sickly white flash that blew the darkwraith's arm aside.
Interesting, Ornstein thought to himself as he brought his spear back before thrusting again. The darkwraith narrowly deflected Ornstein's second attack with its darksword blade, but Ornstein knew that he had won. He brought the butt of the spear around to strike the wraith in its left temple, pushing it back further and cracking it's mask - those were incredibly brittle, from what Ornstein had seen - before spinning his spear to bring the point forwards again before ramming it through the darkwraith's neck. The monstrosity dropped.
The pair had fought their way into the city streets, and were gradually working their way towards the palace in the center of the city, where they would rejoin Kirk, before using the connecting tower as a vantage point to search out any stragglers. Three more darkwraiths rushed them from a nearby plaza, and the two mismatched knights returned the charge. Ornstein lowered his spear as if to go on the offensive immediately, watching carefully for the ripple shield that he was sure the darkwraith would throw up. Sure enough, it appeared as Ornstein was a few feet away. He adjusted his aim, thrusting for the wraith's left hand as the shield went up. Just as before, the shield vanished with a flash of sickly pale light as Ornstein's spear struck the darkwraith's hand, flinging the wraith's arm to the side and presenting Ornstein with an opening. Ornstein was careful to avoid getting the second thrust deflected this time, bringing it in at a more specific angle with a firmer hold. The deflection attempt still came and landed, but the haft of the spear blocked it, receiving only a small nick before Ornstein was able to ram the spear through the darkwraith's torso.
Ornstein felt worriedly at the nick, not wanting to be disarmed as the result of a shoddy spear for a second time. It seemed like the nick would be fine for the moment, but there was no way to know if the spear would hold up to any further strikes. Damn, but this was frustrating. For what seemed like the hundredth time that day, Ornstein wished he was still able to use his own spear. Sadly, it was still as long as it had been when he was twice his current height, and, as a result, impossible to wield properly. With a resigned sigh, Ornstein turned to face the second darkwraith. Surprisingly enough, his tactic had managed to confirm a kill before Tarkus had even been able to drop his own opponent.
The second darkwraith charged at him with abandon, realizing that his shield was next to useless with Ornstein's newfound knowledge. Ornstein tried to intercept the wraith with his spear, but the darkwraith twisted its body at the last second, causing the spear to glance off of a reinforced plate of bone rather than slipping through a gap. Ornstein was left with no choice but to twist his spear to block the incoming strike, leaving another nick, much larger this time, in the haft. Ornstein shoved the spear out and threw the sword off of it, before twisting it back to thrust at the darkwraith's neck. The wraith, much to the dragonslayer's astonishment, snapped its left hand up to the spear, grabbing it by the haft and holding it fast in a burst of inhuman speed. The wraith snapped the spearhead off casually, before yanking the remnants of the spear out of the dragonslayer's hands and tossing it aside. Ornstein looked on in shock as the darkwraith brought it's sword back to strike his defenseless body. Could this really be it? Only having killed a total of nine darkwraiths, out of the three hundred some in the city, and already he had been defeated?
His answer came in the form of Tarkus, who, having finished off his own wraith, stepped in to lop this one's head clean off, dropping it before it could send Ornstein back to Catarina the hard way. The black iron knight noted Ornstein's broken spear and growled.
"Damn. Kirk has all the repair powder. What now?" Tarkus asked, and Ornstein looked around. He could use the darkswords left behind by the dead wraiths if necessary, but he would really rather not. They seemed foreign to him, their weight not quite right, and so he looked around for anything he could get his hands on in their stead. As if by divine intervention - although Ornstein knew from experience that no god in Lordran had ever been capable of such a thing - a foreign figure with one arm waved to him from a nearby rooftop, before tossing a bundle down to him. As Ornstein caught the package, the figure turned to pick up a long greatsword, before jumping away to another roof. As he did, just before he vanished out of sight, Ornstein noticed that the man - if man it was - had only one arm.
The bundle that had just been delivered was a long shape wrapped in tied leather, with a small note attached to the twine holding it shut. Ornstein glanced at the note.
Old friend, it read, I heard that you found yourself unable to use your last weapon, so I had a friend procure this for you. Figured I'd drop it off as I was passing through. Seems I was just in time. -A
Ornstein wondered who the signature '-A' referred to, but the handwriting was hauntingly familiar. The dragonslayer shrugged it off, not having the time to pay attention to it right now. Then he unwrapped the bundle, and was unable to conceal his shock. Inside was a perfect replica of his dragonslayer's spear, sized perfectly to his current form. How had anyone gotten this? He had only been human-sized for a week or so, and no human had the ability to create something in this style. Ornstein's wonder was redoubled as he grabbed the haft of the spear and felt the magic within - the lightning enchantments on this spear matched those of his original. There was no question about it. This was the work of the blacksmith deity. But how had it been created? How could anyone have possibly predicted this situation? The odds of this happening-
"I know what you're thinking," Tarkus interrupted, snapping Ornstein back to reality, "but it's best not to look a gift horse in the mouth. We'll figure out how the thing exists later. For now, we've still got work to do."
Ornstein nodded determinedly, tossing the leather wrap aside and readying the new spear. The pair charged ahead into the plaza, where another group of darkwraiths were waiting.
Kirk decided that he might have bitten off more than he could chew as he danced among the blades of fifteen separate darkwraiths, each determined to kill him simultaneously. Even during the Catarina battle, he had had Ornstein to keep the pressure off and make sure that only two or three wraiths were able to attack him at any given time. He threw elbows and kicks whenever he could, using his thorned armor to crack some of the darkwraiths' heavier plates, while performing the occasional brutal hack with his darksword. His kill count was up to thirty-seven now, but the things just kept coming. Kirk was now slowly but surely falling back to the palace, where he hoped to meet up with Tarkus and whichever blue had been sent in an attempt to turn the tide. But for now, Kirk fought on, even so heavily on the back foot as he was. As one wraith with heavily cracked armor overswung, Kirk lashed out, performing two strikes to hack first through its arm, and then through its neck. That made thirty-eight kills and fourteen wraiths bothering him. Two more emerged from the gloom to join the fray. Brilliant. Now he was back at sixteen. The only thing that had allowed him to live so long was the fact that New Londo streets were rather narrow, and only four to five wraiths could really attack him at one time. Being on the back foot as he was, they were all arrayed to one direction of him, and as new ones came he carefully maneuvered them into the central crowd before continuing to retreat. So, in reality, the fight was multiple five versus one encounters in a row, not a single sixteen versus one encounter. And with Kirk's knowledge of the darkwraiths, as well as a decent amount of caution, he could handle that.
As the two darkwraiths from behind approached, Kirk backstepped past them to get them in front of him, slashing at the one to his right and getting a decent hack in through the bone plate. Sadly, it was just a superficial wound and nowhere close to being lethal - meaning that Kirk would have to finish the thing off later. For a brief moment, the knight of thorns moved into an offensive stance, driving the two new wraiths back for just long enough to get them into the front line, before backing off again as the main line slashed at him from several different directions. As he did, one of the new wraiths - the uninjured one, Kirk noted - got impatient and charged at him. Kirk casually batted aside the creature's strike with his spider shield, before ramming the darksword through the creature's throat, and ripping it out in a brutal fashion that decapitated the wraith - an execution he was fond of, especially when there were other enemies nearby. It sent a message, and the others who had started to get a little bold in their strikes backed off. That was the biggest thing that Kirk had learned during his time with the darkwraiths - most of them, when faced with something that actually posed a threat, were cowards who preferred to hide behind their red eye orbs rather than fighting someone face to face. Dishonorable bastards. Kirk hacked at the line, only to find his strike blocked by a lifedrain shield and resume his slow backwards march. The knight of thorns took a moment to glance over his shoulder, checking his distance to the palace. He was almost there; only a few more blocks remained. He was worried about the ghosts, but decided that they would cross that bridge when they got there. Turning back to the battle at hand, Kirk yelled in defiance as he stepped forwards and lashed out once more.
Ornstein's new spear had handled beautifully. The weight behind it was greater, allowing him to punch through darkwraith armor with some effort, without being too heavy to use. He stepped across the pile of darkwraith corpses littering the plaza - fifteen in total - and picked a street to continue down. There were only a few blocks left to go until the pair reached the palace. Tarkus stepped up beside him, and the two broke into a regulated jog, the perfect balance between speed and efficiency for the circumstance. A darkwraith stepped out from an alleyway nearby, but Tarkus decapitated it with a swipe of his axe before it had a chance to make a move. Two more stood up ahead, but Ornstein had that covered as well, thrusting his spear forwards to fling a lightning bolt out of the tip. The bolt hit the left darkwraith in the chest, knocking it off its feet, before Ornstein kicked forwards in a rush of speed, closing the fifteen-foot distance and skewering the second wraith. He slammed the corpse of the second wraith down on the prone form of the first, who was just beginning to rise, and the spear blade punched through, killing it as well. Ornstein yanked the spear out as Tarkus caught up. Debris was littered across the road, but nowhere did it sit in such quantities as to become an obstruction. Tarkus and Ornstein simply wove around it as they continued on to the palace relatively unopposed.
"Careful," Tarkus said as they reached the palace doors, "Kirk and I had to get through there a bit ago in order to unseal this place. It was full of ghosts."
Thinking back to the figure that had tossed him his spear, Ornstein was fairly certain that those had already been handled, and kicked the doors open. Sure enough, the room was filled with a thick white fog, the remnants of slain ghosts.
"Well, that's fortunate. Wonder who did that?" Tarkus commented, before shrugging. "Ah, well. Let's see if we can spot Kirk from the roof."
A moment later, the pair discovered it wasn't necessary, as they saw Kirk retreating up a nearby street towards the palace, engaging what looked to be over half of the remaining darkwraiths in the city. The pair nodded, then rushed to his side. It seemed that the true battle had finally begun.
As Ornstein charged, he realized just how Kirk had managed to survive so long against such a mighty force. The streets were so narrow that only five darkwraiths at most could attack at once - the others would be blocked by their own comrades. Ornstein skewered one as he hit the line, causing the tip of his spear to protrude out the wraith's back and firing a lightning bolt though it to hit the next wraith in line, before kicking the first corpse off of his spear and creating a holdup. To the other side of Kirk, who stood in the middle, Tarkus hit the line as well, slapping a wraith in the chest with the blunt end of his greataxe and causing the creature to topple backwards into his fellows, halting their advance there as well. Kirk hacked at the center wraith with a darksword, taking off its head in a brutal fashion. Ornstein grinned as the line was replaced by more darkwraiths, who hesitantly advanced. Their hesitation was well founded.
Tarkus was impressed by Ornstein's capability in combat. He had never seen the dragonslayer fight before, but had heard rumors. They all undersold his true capacity. The man was a legend, thrusting and sweeping with his spear, sometimes taking out the entire five-wraith line with a single swing. Kirk and Tarkus were barely able to keep up once the dragonslayer fell into his deadly rhythm. Within a minute, he had slashed through six lines singlehandedly, and taken an additional four alongisde Tarkus and Kirk. As Tarkus' greataxe fell on the wraith in front of him, he abruptly found that there was no darkwraith waiting in its stead. Kirk and Ornstein had similar revelations as they finished their own groups. Over fifty darkwraiths killed in less than a minute, with a third of their numbers defeated totaling Ornstein and Tarkus' kill counts, before Kirk's was even brought into the picture. Whether the knight of thorns had intended this or not, it had been a brilliant tactical move. The three of them waded through the knee-high corpse pile back to the palace, where they climbed once more to analyze the city. There were still quite a few wraiths left alive in the city, but the battle had been won. The remaining enemies were scattered and panicked, trying to escape from the onslaught in any way they could, but finding themselves trapped at both ends by drakes in the valley, on the side of the city's main gates, and by a narrow bridge between the city and the lift to Firelink. There was still work to be done here, but Tarkus and Kirk could agree that they had accomplished something brilliant. And Ornstein stood as the spirit of salvation to Catarina.
AN: This was a really fun one to write. I've not done a ton of large scale battles, especially with a highly superior force fighting an inferior one. I tried to make it tactically realistic with the three knights trying to take things individually and then bottlenecking the larger force to minimize the number of enemies that could attack at once, essentially turning a 3 vs. 300 fight into a string of smaller, more balanced 2 and 3 vs 5 encounters. Still difficult, but once these guys started figuring out the darkwraiths' weaknesses, combined with the fact that both Kirk and Tarkus still have their darksigns active and the fact that Ornstein doesn't actually need one because he isn't human to begin with, I think it makes this pretty realistic. That doesn't mean I don't want to hear what you guys think, and I'd love some more reviews. Thanks for reading, and I'll see you guys in the next one.