"AAAAH!"
Dodging Nero's and Antony's large figures, Octavia made her way to Morgan's side with her brother's sword drawn from its blood coloured scabbard. She inched closer, focusing in her field of vague vision the vivid spot that set apart her friend and her foe. She needed to go there. And she needed to go fast; as fast as possible; as fast as she could bring her physical body.
"Draw your weapons!" The sounds of clanking metal permeated the shocked team. Rhiannon flipped her staff towards the abomination as quivering lips chanted a spell, forming a white mist with the suddenly cold air. Her breath hitched and she found her hand trembling uncontrollably in terror. No, she thought. This was exactly what the Black Being wanted. Fear. She bit her lip and bent her knees, readying a sturdy stance. The tip of her staff spurted yellow liquid before a big enchantment circle spun against the enemy.
"Ad perditionem devorans!" She shouted as the burning liquid dissolved a part of the spirit's arm. The creature's body drew into itself, slowly, as though to treasure this very moment in its heart ever so emotionally and suddenly, in all its horridness, it spanned whatever arms it had left and screamed with a voice so monstrous, Octavia stopped in her tracks. Her free hand grabbed Morgan by the wrists. Tugging her to safety, she made room for Arawn to launch an attack on its head.
Nero covered his mouth. Black blood splattering against Octavia's clothes, she could feel the cold liquid suddenly slithering down towards the white spirit's body. Her muscles stiffened at the freezing contact. It was cold, they thought in unison. It was summer but it felt like they had been thrown into a dark frozen lake all together. Octavia felt her hair stand on edge.
This was it. The Black Being.
The Black Being that brings to life those who have fallen long ago, with the sole purpose to haunt, with its sadistic nature to torture, maim and kill, in body, mind and soul...
Octavia felt suffocated. She led everyone into this.
It was her fault.
Not for long, Arthur and Atia clanked their swords to protect themselves from two more creatures. Atia ducked and swiped her legs across a large man's knees. To the ground, he fell and met his timely doom when Atia slashed him.
Again, black blood flooded the soil. When Octavia averted her eyes back to the first foe, she found two black beings looming over her instead. Her vision clouded by fear, she shouted her vigor as her sword met the creature's side. The blade merged into its body before Octavia saw from the corner of her eyes, a blonde figure grinning behind the black creature. Someone familiar. Someone that shook the very bones of the strategist's body.
Her fear...
"Hhngh!" Her blade wouldn't budge, stuck like the sword of Drnwyn. Morgan gave a soft blow to Octavia's knee. It bent and the young strategist felt her world shifting away from her mortal self as her petite body tumbled over her friend. Yet, before feeling the thump against her comrade's chest, inches away from her neck, the being's limb that had formed into a scythe swung across while Octavia continued to crouch right in the knick of time. Even so, she flinched at a hot line that had sharply carved itself onto the crook of her neck and shoulders.
She was cut. Without contact, she was cut.
The blow was so hard and so rapid, a strong breeze hit Octavia and Morgan, causing their eyes to instantly flutter shut from the powerful momentum of the uneasy air.
Octavia clasped her bleeding neck while her other hand was finally able to tug her sword out by only a fraction, but along with it brought threads of the creatures black flesh, dangling and pricking Octavia's fingers. The blonde whimpered.
"Bloody fu-" Octavia yelled in pain. Her vision blurred but with a prompt rush of valor flowing through her veins, she recovered and breathed as though she had held it for her entire life. She needed to fight. Right now. "Give it back!"
One final pull and she sent herself flying backwards with Morgan cushioning her hard thump. At last, in her shaking grasp was her precious sword.
Nero's words rang in Octavia's mind. She was the strategist. Her friends were her pawns, rooks, Knights and kings. She had to think of a weakness before she could instruct her team to victory.
But what was it?
What was the creature's weakness?
The sunlight?
Lying lopsided, her eyes darted across the inverted battled field, passing the clouded sky, neatly framed by branches and leaves. Turning her head further, she saw the King of Albion.
"Arthur!" Octavia shouted at the top of her lungs. "Use Drnwyn! Use its light!"
Arthur nodded as he witnessed the beast before him twitching on the wet muddy soil, slowly standing on its weak sticks of legs and morphed in vivid agitation and agony, into none other than Arawn's white spirit self; Lucifer. He gripped his sword tighter. He felt his heart thump slow and hard, bolting against his ribs. He took in a deep breath. He had nothing to lose, especially when it came to Octavia's assessment. He had no choice but to trust her as he always did. He bellowed.
"Drnwyn!" The broad blue sword shimmered in grace before the light ventured straight as a glowing blade. It swiftly cut Arthur's and Atia's enemies into two like it was cutting through soft butter, sleek and smooth. The sight of it made Arthur feel nauseous. Before him was Arawn, his guts finding their way out of his body with black blood spilling down his torso.
"Nero!" Atia plead when she ran back to avoid another two separate creatures. Nero unsheathed his sword to find himself flabbergasted at Atia's situation. No, there were just two of them, just a moment ago, he thought. It wasn't possible that now, in front of them, were four. Where could they have come from?
"They multiplied?" Nero exclaimed, shocked.
"No, they didn't!" Arawn shouted. Another being from Arthur's side appeared from the faltering body. "They divided!" The team of eight had their brows furrowed.
"It didn't work..." Octavia whispered in immense disbelief. It was then when she realized that she had made the situation far worse. She felt her heart sink into a vortex of exponentially towering confusion. "What have I done…"
Octavia felt a stinging pain when one of Morgan's arrows cut her right ear. She winced in agony to the side before Morgan let go of three arrows at once.
"Sorry! Octavia!"
The three arrows pelted the dark skin of the creature with a loud clump. Octavia groaned but waved a reassuring hand towards her buddy. She felt lost. She could have grasped the solution just a moment ago but the mere appearance of this creature had left her trail of thoughts far from her evocation.
The being gaped its huge mouth exposing its set of white pointy teeth, sharper than any teeth she could imagine. It breathed in, saliva spewing and dark ribs protruding against its velvety skin. Its golden eyes narrowed as another monstrous scream deafened Octavia's ears. Its voice choked in segments as if to give a slow ghostly laugh.
Letting go of hot steam was its nightly grim skin, sighing in pleasure by the sight of two ladies, cringing and widening their eyes in absolute fear. Octavia could feel the scarce warmth in the cold air. A drizzle of rain poured and it was then when the blonde found herself gulping.
This was it. They needed sunlight to debunk the mystery of that drawing. Yet at the same time, it was cloudy and it started raining, when the creature crawled out to initiate its attack. To make matters worse, slashing them with their swords would lead to the being splitting into literal halves, multiplying their troubles even further.
It was like the drawing, Octavia contemplated. In that circle was the being, ripping into two, but not because it was cut. Instead, it reached out with its arms for both of the moons that were sketched on each side of the circle.
No, this wasn't helping. She was stuck again.
Think! She felt her heart skipping.
"No, no, no..."
Morgan grabbed Octavia's collar and pushed her to the side, dodging yet another attack from the dark creature. She stared, clenching her neck.
"RETREAT!" Octavia shouted in desperation. That's right. This was no battle to be trifled with. Before anything happened, she had to put every single one of these people into safety from her poor remark, and most importantly, from the Black Being.
Nero slid into the mud to move out of a blade's blow. He kicked Atia in the shin, to her distaste, but only to have her fall forwards and avoid a deadly knock-back from a hunger stricken monster behind.
"Are you demented?" Nero shouted at his cousin. "Withdraw at a time l-"
"We all have bloody swords except a few!" Octavia barked back and lunged forward, cutting the monster's scythe from killing Morgan. Even so, she made doubly sure to not cut the whole way through so as to not let it form into another beast. The green haired shivered at the blonde's vicious eyes as she slayed the creature with no more than a flinch from its sputtering blood. "Fighting them makes it worse! The more we cut them down, the more they will divide. Before long, we're outnumbered! We've been fooled to play their game from the start. This is what they want in the first place!"
Nero nodded and quickly tugged Atia's wrist. "RETREAT!" he shouted and made his way to the horses, skittering between tall looming trees. "WITHDRAW THIS INSTANT! GO- JUST GO!"
In a web they were, cornered to struggle in fear when the very act itself would overtly make it worse, covering them with more spider-ly threads, until at the very end of the predicament, they would find themselves utterly glued to their planned demise.
That was the Black Being's ultimate trump card.
"EVERYONE RETREAT!" Arthur echoed and ushered everyone to run towards their horses.
Octavia was the last to have fled the scene when she had to assist Morgan in escaping the myriad of Black Beings before them. She let her friend go ahead when she gave one last powerful assault to one of the monsters to slow their crowd down, widening the gap between them and her companions.
From behind, she felt a frantic Arthur yanking her by the wrist, hastily bringing her to their horses before the darkness of the storm totally left their vision blank.
Suddenly, Arthur felt the blonde wrenching her hand away from his, and no more did he hear her panicked footsteps. He looked back and gasped.
The imperial strategist, the smartest of the lot, was silently running back to their enemy's den. Without a second to spare, he wrapped his large arm around her petite waist, making them both plunge down into the mud and grassy tree roots, thumping and splashing murky water in their faces.
"OCTAVIA!" Arthur shouted and instantly grabbed her collar inches close to his nose, rain droplets falling vigorously from his wet hair to the blonde's pale cheeks. He raised a hand but halted it when he found blue eyes widening in shock at the King. Arthur took a deep breath. "What the bloody hell are you up to?" He shook her by her shirt. "You're getting yourself killed!"
Octavia pushed the pinning king to the side and rushed to get to her feet. "My papers and scrolls!" She shouted back and was on the verge of bursting to tears when she found herself awfully desperate on retrieving them. She needed it. What was she without her readings? What was the Imperial Strategist without her stratagem? She drew her sword out. "I need to take it back!"
A couple of seconds later, the stunned blonde found the King sprinting towards the small army of Black Beings. "Cover me from behind!" he shouted and then, in all his might, he waved his blue sword and bellowed, "DRNWYN!"
Blue streaks of light flashed, leaving Octavia huffing at the sight of the monsters exploding from the absolute force of Arthur's strike. She stood and ran towards Arthur's direction.
Indeed, it was true that cutting them would only multiply their burden by hundredfolds but given the situation Arthur has left her with, she bit her lip and considered it a better tactic to slash each being before it had enough time to morph and plant an assault on them both.
One by one, in a pool of black blood that seemed to grow thinner and taller altogether, she cut them all. From her left to her right, she found a beast to be no more than a meter away from her grasp, to which she would quickly cut while slowly inching her way closer to Arthur's side.
Finally, from the corner of her eye, she found the king gripping onto her bag of literature. He dashed as fast as he could towards the imperial strategist.
But it was too late.
The number of foes that had emerged widened the gap between the brunet and the blonde. Octavia looked at Arthur who looked back at her. She felt her chest tighten.
No, she couldn't lose him. Not now.
She paused and swiftly observed behind. The coast was barely obstructed towards their horses. The only thing that was left for her to do was to help Arthur get across the quantity between them.
"TO YOUR LEFT!" Arthur shouted and sent a strike of Drnwyn's light across. Octavia ducked towards a tree and shielded her eyes from the burning flash.
It was getting dark, as though the forest was being blanketed with pitch black. Was it the rain or the Black Being? The blonde couldn't know at this point.
Arthur made a path and quickly bolted his way through while Octavia frenziedly swung her blade, slashing, slitting, slicing, gashing a dozen on her way to the king. She was certain that Arthur was mere inches away from her by that time, but when she looked back up, he was still a good five meters away.
They looked like black blotches. She couldn't see. So, she knew that Arthur was the same. Even so, she saw, in utter fright, Arthur's vague figure falling back against a tree, cornered by possibly ten of them.
In the knick of time, she was able to find her way through and neared him by a good foot or two before bombarding pelts of her silver sword with three, six, eight of them in mere seconds! Before struggling in the dark to hop to his boots, he rushed to flash Drnwyn inches away from Octavia's back, nearly wounding her torso entirely.
He paused and panted.
He was a hair strand away from killing Octavia.
"RUN!" Octavia yelled.
A tug.
"Shit!" She found her sword stuck again. A whimper. A loud grunt. "Not now!"
She yanked it with all the power each fiber of each muscle of her body could offer before in that speeding moment, she found her brother's sword completely obliterated by a single swift blow from one of the beasts.
As though time had slowed down, she saw before her tearing sapphire eyes, pieces of her only weapon flinging across her face, clanking against the barks of trees, the soil, their boots. It was gone- destroyed in its entirety. In pieces. Shattered. Gone.
She stared and felt her heart completely stop.
It was gone. Completely. Gone.
She was holding onto nothing but a blunt stick. She gulped. And it was all because of this beast. Vexed, she turned to look at it.
No, it wasn't a beast.
It was…
"Mother…" Octavia cowered. The first Imperial Strategist.
A pause.
Arthur finally got to straighten his knees but he still couldn't stand to see what was holding himself back from getting on to his own two feet without sliding back down into the sludge. Shifting his gaze to his side, he found a path, amongst the monsters that could lead them back to their team. But it would inevitably require them to outrun their foes from the side. Nevertheless, it was the only choice they had. He turned back.
"Octavia! We could-"
Thrown back by the pure force, the King instantly yelled in pain the second he was powerfully knocked back against the tree. He slid down. It took him a second or two to finally come to the revelation that it was Octavia's body... lying still on top of him. He blinked. After a long while, he heard the blonde whimpering against his right shoulder.
Above her crown, he saw a morphed black being; a woman who had a striking resemblance to Atia. But by her mere face and expression or rather lack of, the young ruler could tell that she had nothing left in her soul, but a stone cold fortitude. Tracing her body with his eyes, in the dark, he couldn't help but marvel at a shining golden scythe at the tip of her strong grip, blinding him. And, it was connected to none other than Octavia's entire right shoulder.
He looked down, breathless. He wanted to call for her name but his body was stuck, completely, in utter shock.
Profusely spilling was Octavia's blood, spreading all over Octavia back and Arthur's left arm, staining them of bright crimson, as red as the woman's coat that hung loosely by her elbows and shoulders…
Silently, the woman gently lowered her scythe. Octavia moaned in absolute agony, gripping onto Arthur's sleeves with trembling hands, nails digging and clawing. She panted heavily, head buried into the crook of the king's neck while the ruler found himself utterly riveted onto the soil and the solid bark of the tree. He could feel the blonde shivering and pulsing, huffing and puffing, weeping and groaning at the sheer pain and distraught, right upon his body, his frozen shuddering body.
He was her deathbed.
"Ar…th- P-plea..se…" He felt her tears running down his clavicle. A whimper. "R-run…"
The woman smiled.
"Ar... thur..."
With a rapid thrust of her knee, the woman plunged her weight on the scythe and that was when Arthur heard a part of Octavia, a solid part of her body, literally crack.
A scream.