Archer.
Blade.
Shield.
Closing the distance.
Three of them came close to Frauner and Mauris.
The Bone King noticed.
His skeletons were thinning.
Falling.
Shattering.
He had not cast a spell.
A mistake.
He spread his arms wide, mist curling around the hollow crown.
His jaw opened.
Ancient syllables crawled from his throat.
"Vel'thar moruun… Eshkareth vael… Thren'kai ossur dominai…"
The air tightened.
The bones on the ground trembled.
Thalia loaded an arrow.
Released.
The arrow tore through the air.
The Bone King heard it;
that sharp, splitting whisper of death cutting wind.
He twisted.
Too late.
The arrow pierced the right side of his body.
Blood spilled.
Dark.
Unnatural.
The spell shattered in his mouth.
He staggered.
The spell did not fade quietly.
It broke.
Like glass struck mid-formation.
The moment the arrow tore through his flesh, the ancient syllables snapped apart in his throat. The mist recoiled. The air that had tightened around them released in a violent shudder.
Across the battlefield;
The bones that had begun to rise convulsed.
Half-formed skeletons stood frozen in grotesque incompletion.
Ribs hovered without spines.
Skulls hung in air without jaws.
Arms clawed forward without shoulders to anchor them.
For one breath;
They trembled.
Held together by a spell that no longer existed.
Then;
CRRRRKKKKK!
The magic unraveled.
Sockets dimmed.
Vertebrae slipped apart mid-air.
Femurs dropped like discarded sticks.
Entire torsos collapsed inward, collapsing into piles of lifeless bone.
Clatter.
Clack.
Clatter.
A rain of failure striking the forest floor.
The mist thinned where the magic had tried to root itself.
The Bone King staggered back a step, dark blood spilling down pale armor-bone.
His hollow gaze flared.
The army he tried to summon;
Reduced to nothing but scattered remains at his feet.
And for the first time...
The forest was not answering him.
Still more than fifty skeletons remained.
They rushed forward as one.
"Henry, stay safe!" Thalia yelled.
She began moving her lips again.
Mauris steadied himself with his spear, though blood ran down his side.
Frauner tightened his grip on his sword, bleeding; but unyielding.
Leah raised her blade toward the Bone King.
Thalia continued her chant.
The Bone King screeched and sprinted toward them, twin sickles flashing.
Behind the Thalia, the skeletons charged.
Leah ran straight at him.
No hesitation.
He slashed.
She intercepted.
Steel shrieked against cursed metal.
He spun and struck with the second sickle.
CLIIIIIIING!
Mist swirled violently around them.
Mauris thrust forward;
his spear crashing into the arc of the second blade, forcing it aside.
The Bone King turned within the moving fog;
And Frauner leapt.
Sword carving a brutal semicircle through the mist;
aimed for the hollow beneath the crown.
At that same breath;
Thalia stopped chanting.
Silence fell around her for a fraction of a second.
The arrow she nocked began to glow.
Not red.
Not gold.
Blue.
A deep, living blue that pulsed along the shaft like lightning trapped beneath glass.
Sparks crawled over the arrowhead.
Wind tightened around it.
She released.
The bowstring snapped.
The arrow did not merely fly;
It streaked.
A comet tearing through mist, leaving a trail of shimmering blue fragments in its wake. The fog parted around it as if burned by its passing.
Midair;
It split.
One became two.
Two became five.
Five became ten.
Ten luminous streaks fanning outward in a deadly arc across the battlefield.
The skeletons turned and tried to align rib;
Too late.
The arrows struck.
BOOOOOM!
Blue fire erupted on impact.
Not ordinary flame;
Violent.
Explosive.
Hungry.
Bones shattered outward in every direction. Ribcages burst apart mid-charge. Skulls detonated into fragments of white dust. The sparkling hearts within their chests flickered;
Then evaporated.
Nearby skeletons caught in the blast did not even break.
They dissolved.
Blue heat swallowed them whole, reducing cursed bone to drifting ash.
The forest flashed bright;
Then dimmed.
When the smoke cleared;
Only a handful remained.
Blackened.
Cracked.
Still moving.
They staggered toward Thalia.
She dropped to one knee.
Driving the knife fixed beneath her bow into the earth to steady herself.
Her breath came in sharp pulls.
Arms trembling from the surge of power.
Henry was there instantly.
Catching her shoulder.
Holding her upright.
Shielding her.
The surviving skeletons advanced;
Through thinning mist.
Through falling ash.
Toward the archer who had just burned half their army to nothing.
On the other end;
The Bone King's skull tilted back.
And he chanted.
Low.
Rapid.
Venomous.
Frauner was already moving toward him when the final syllable tore free;
"Khar'vel… Ossur Vraen!"
Both sickles flared.
Cracks of black light raced along their curved edges;
Then;
BOOOOOOOOM!
They exploded.
A violent shockwave erupted outward.
Mist blasted away in a perfect ring.
Frauner.
Leah.
Mauris.
Even the Bone King himself;
Launched in different directions like broken leaves in a storm.
Frauner hit the ground hard but slammed his sword vertically into the earth;
Steel biting deep.
The blade screamed against stone as it dragged, slowing him, boots carving trenches until he stopped.
Leah twisted midair;
Landed on one knee;
Her sword driven down before her, edge vertical, using it to brace as she slid backward through ash and bone dust.
Mauris spun;
But planted the butt of his spear into the ground.
The shaft bent under force, absorbing the blast as he skidded sideways, barely keeping his feet.
"Mauris!"
Frauner roared through the settling dust.
"Protect Thalia!"
Mauris snapped his head toward her position instantly.
Across the torn clearing;
The Bone King rose first.
One hand pressed to the ground.
Sliding.
Balancing.
His other arm dragging a sickle back into grip.
Leah sprinted.
Straight at him.
No hesitation.
Frauner pushed forward too;
Boots pounding earth.
Sword raised.
The mist closed in again around them.
Two warriors charging.
One reaping king rising.
And the forest trembling once more.