The Bone King broke the deadlock with violence.
His wounded leg snapped backward and then forward with brutal force, tearing his trapped limb free from Thalia's blade. Bone cracked. Mist exploded outward.
He moved first.
A savage diagonal slash;
Leah reacted on instinct.
She threw her left arm up, bracing with her armored gauntlet.
SSSHRRAAACK!
The sickle carved across the metal.
The impact rang like a struck bell.
The armor split.
Steel plates buckled and tore loose.
The edge bit through just enough to score her flesh beneath.
A thin red line burned across her forearm.
The force hurled her backward three steps.
She landed hard, boots carving through bone fragments, clutching her arm; but she did not fall.
The Bone King pressed forward to finish it.....
But Frauner was already there.
His sword crashed down in a brutal overhead cleave.
CLAAANG!
The Bone King raised one sickle to intercept;
Mauris struck at the same breath.
A thrust to the ribs.
The King twisted, blocking the spear with the shaft of his long-handled scythe;
Frauner pivoted and slashed horizontally;
Mauris reversed grip and stabbed again;
They did not give him space.
No breath.
No rhythm.
Steel hammered against cursed bone in relentless succession.
High.
Low.
Side.
Thrust.
The Bone King's sickles flashed defensively, intercepting strike after strike, sparks bursting in rapid fire bursts.
He opened his jaw;
Ancient syllables rising;
"Vel..."
Frauner's pommel smashed into his mouth.
The spell died in his teeth.
Mauris swept low at the knee again;
The Bone King hopped back;
Thalia arrived from the flank.
She spun her bow, blade flashing toward his ribs.
He blocked;
She reversed and cut for the wrist;
He twisted;
She stepped inside and drove the lower blade toward his wounded leg again.
The King snarled and shoved outward with both sickles;
Forcing them all a half-step back;
Just enough.
His hollow crown tilted upward.
Mist spiraled toward him.
He inhaled;
"Thren!"
An arrow struck his shoulder.
THUD.
Not deep.
But enough.
His concentration shattered again.
Thalia had drawn and fired in the space between heartbeats.
She did not stop moving.
Another arrow was already in her fingers.
Leah rejoined from the right, blood trailing down her broken gauntlet.
She attacked without hesitation.
A rapid triple combination;
High cut
Low sweep
Turning stab
The Bone King blocked two.
Frauner intercepted his counter.
Mauris thrust from behind Frauner's shoulder like a striking serpent.
The spearhead grazed the King's side, tearing bone-flesh.
He screeched.
Both sickles exploded outward in a violent spinning defense.
Frauner ducked.
Mauris leaned back.
Leah stepped inside the arc;
Her blade sliding along the inner curve of a sickle;
Locking it.
Thalia dashed forward.
She abandoned distance entirely.
Bow horizontal;
She slammed one blade into the wounded knee.
Then drew an arrow at near point-blank range.
The Bone King saw it.....
Too late.
She released.
The shaft drove into his abdomen.
He staggered.
Frauner shoulder-checked him from the front.
Mauris slammed the butt of his spear into the back of his injured leg.
Leah kicked his wounded knee joint.
The Bone King dropped to one knee.
Still fighting.
Still slashing upward wildly.
But bleeding.
Unable to speak.
Unable to breathe long enough to cast.
The four of them closed in again.....
A tightening circle of steel.
No spells.
No pause.
Only relentless pressure.
And for the first time;
The Bone King was being driven backward.
The Bone King erupted.
No defense now.
Only fury.
His sickles became a cyclone of death.
He drove forward and met Frauner first.
Frauner roared and answered with everything he had left;
One strike.
Two.
Three.
Relentless.
Steel hammered bone again and again, forcing the King backward.
Frauner's blade cut across the ribs.
Across the shoulder.
Across the wounded thigh.
The Bone King shrieked;
Then pivoted with monstrous speed.
A kick.
Brutal.
Crushing.
It slammed into Frauner's chest.
CRACK.
Frauner flew backward and hit the ground hard.
His sword skidded from his grip.
He tried to rise...
Couldn't.
Air gone.
Body failing.
The Bone King turned.
Leah rushed him.
He slashed low.
Her leg armor split apart in a burst of sparks.
SSSHHKK!
The blade cut through.
She staggered, one knee buckling, blood staining shattered metal.
Mauris lunged in rage.
But the Bone King caught the spear mid-thrust.
Twisted.
The shaft snapped.
Wood exploded into splinters.
Fragments scattered in midair.
The King reversed the broken weapon and raised a sickle.
A killing arc meant for Mauris' throat.
Thalia moved.
Her bow split in half as a sickle sliced through it.
CRACK!
The weapon severed at its center.
But she did not hesitate.
She hurled one broken half.
The knife-tipped end spinning through mist.
It drove deep into the left side of the Bone King's body.
THUNK!
He lost balance.
Just enough.
Mauris, falling backward midair.
Saw a broken spear tip spinning beside him.
He kicked it.
With everything.
The metal fragment shot like a bullet.
It struck the Bone King's mask.
CRAAACK!
The spear tip pierced through bone and into his face.
The mask fractured in jagged lines.
The King staggered backward, clawing at the embedded shard.
Frauner, still on the ground.
Used the last of his strength.
He grabbed his fallen sword.
And hurled it.
"Mauris!"
Mauris hit the ground.
Rolled..
Caught the sword in one hand.
The Bone King was reeling now.
Moving backward.
Mist collapsing around him.
Mauris planted his foot hard.
And sprinted.
Every muscle burning.
Thalia threw the remaining half of her bow.
The second blade spinning end over end.
It pierced clean through the side of the Bone King's neck.
The impact snapped his head sideways.
He staggered.
Mauris leapt.
Sword raised.
The world slowed for a single breath.
Then;
One brutal horizontal arc.
Clean.
Merciless.
The blade cut through neck and fractured bone.
The head separated midair.
The crown of bone spinning away into mist.
The body stood for half a heartbeat;
Then collapsed.
Heavy.
Lifeless.
The sickles fell from nerveless hands.
Clatter.
Silence rushed in.
Mist drifted slowly across a battlefield of shattered bone.
And the Bone King did not rise again.