Out of the Darkness

There was a moment of stillness as each side analysed the other. The witches easily had a few hundred people to fight with them. We had a few less than that but I was hoping that Raven’s necklaces would give us the advantage we would need. I wasn’t worried about the numbers per say, but what Raven had said put me on edge.

I felt a shift in the energy in the air and I could almost see the spell they propelled at us. The necklaces’ prevented us from being harmed, by the look in their eyes the witches presumed it was Raven blocking their spell. Then I watched as every witch in the coven started muttering spells under their breath, hoping that Raven couldn’t block everything they threw our way. I saw the confusion escalate throughout them when their spells had no effect on us, uncertainty spreading amongst the less experienced of them.

Before they could figure out why their magic wasn’t working we charged at them as one, pulling out our weapons as we went. They recovered quickly and fought back strongly. We met them move for move, the Exitium had showed exactly how the witches would come at us. This made it necessary to ignore all of their battle plans and to just make it up as they went along. Some were far better than others at attempting this, I’m not entirely sure that everyone had even figured it out yet.

There was a period of time where only the sounds of battle filled the clearing. The witch I was fighting was carefully analysing me as we went. She tried a few spells when we first encountered each other but soon seemed to give up, realising it was a waste of her much needed energy. She soon made a mistake though; she seemed distracted, not paying me her full attention. Suddenly her eyes flicked to my neck, or rather what was around it, and her eyes widened.

“It’s the-“ I sliced my sword through her throat before she could voice her revelation. It hadn’t taken her long to figure it out, but the pendants had at least given us a head start so to speak. When her body fell to the ground I looked around the clearing, bodies littered the floor and I couldn’t tell whose side they were from. Perhaps that was for the best, I didn’t need the distraction of a fallen comrade right now. I took out three more witches that charged at me with their swords drawn, clearly they had been relying on their magic and therefore not adapting their fighting skills when they were preparing for battle.

Out of the corner of my eye I could see the three witches that seemed to be leading the coven in to battle surrounding Raven. I hurried over but encountered several more witches before I could get to her. When I did, I chopped the head off of the one that had her back to me. The other two snarled at me in anger but kept their primary focus on Raven.

“It’s the necklaces isn’t it?” One of them asked Raven.

“I don’t know what you are referring to.” She replied innocently. The witches laughed. They drew their swords and Raven raised hers. Their eyes widened when they saw exactly what weapon Raven was packing. Clearly, they hadn’t done their homework. “Tell me where she is.” Raven demanded from the witches, clearly referring to the missing leader. The witches scoffed. Raven stepped towards them, they froze but not of their own accord.

“Cut it out Raven!” One of the witches yelled. Clearly the spell Raven was using only paralysed them from the neck down.

Ignoring her, Raven stepped towards them, pressed her fingers to her temples and concentrated for a moment and then stepped away. Raven released them from her spell and stabbed one, and then the other through the chest, their bodies fell to the ground.

“I have the location.” Was all she said. We turned back to the rest of the battle to see it was almost over, we were winning but only just. We joined our people and fought alongside them, taking out the remainder of our enemies. I kept one eye on Raven the best I could, seeing the need for vengeance in her eyes. These people took so much from her and she never even knew. That surely wasn’t going to go down well.

I looked around the clearing; I saw none of our enemies still alive. We had won. I heard a cheer and I laughed as I turned to Jake.

“Don’t give me that look Adam, we won!” I smiled but it soon faded when I saw Raven’s expression.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“It’s not over, I have to seek out and kill the leader. She holds the key to breaking the spell.” She explained.

“Then we will of course accompany you.” Jonathan said as a matter of fact.

“No, I shouldn’t have let you come here with me today at all. I must finish this alone.” Raven told us.

“I wouldn’t say you let us do anything. We weren’t allowing you to come here alone and the same goes for progressing further.” Jake said with his arms crossed, looking very serious.

“You may need us Raven.” I pointed out.

“Well someone at least needs to stay to honour the men we’ve lost. It may have only been a few but they still came here to help me, and it cost them their lives.”

“Of course.” James began. “I’ll notify the families and begin making funeral plans.” Raven nodded her thanks.

“That settles it then.”