With Rai hiding, the attacking skeletons crashed into Sigmir, who was happily holding the line. Looking from behind, I almost had to laugh when Sigmir started to swing, timing her strikes in such a way to keep the Lok’Nar move in a perpetual dance of destruction. The skeletons moved in and before they ever were in reach to strike at Sigmir’s body, they were swept aside by her weapon, crushed by her incredible strength. For a moment, I lost myself in a fantasy of that fierce strength, only that it was not wielded to crush our enemies, but to hold me close.

Shaking off those pleasant ideas, I focused on the battle-field, making sure that nothing came across the walls I had put up, and the few that tried, got destroyed by either Lenore, Adra or myself. Adra was the least efficient in that regard, simply due to the bad match, but her arrows could easily destroy them, she just wasted quite a bit of power doing so. Our purpose wasn’t to actually destroy the undead, we were merely here to experiment and test.

And that meant, once Rai had caught his breath, he moved back out, teleporting through the twilight so that he could conceal himself again and start striking at the back of the skeleton-group that was breaking against Sigmir.

As more and more skeletons forced their way across the slick Ice I had prepared, the Ice started to crack and break, the shards acting as annoying caltrops for any living being, but skeletons were mostly immune to the cutting shards beneath their feet. No flesh to cut into, their bones strong enough to withstand the force their weight applied. To make sure that Sigmir would be able to keep them back, I stepped up behind her and carefully applied Blood Magic, channelled into regenerative and enhancing Runes, so I could take some of the strain from her body. She would still get tired, at some point, but with me replenishing her, that point was pushed back by a lot.

Watching Rai work, his movements and tactics, I realised that I should attempt to train him in yet another discipline, or rather, that there was a technique I should explore and teach to him. The way he moved and worked, he was becoming the prototype assassin, the hidden killer, concealed within the shadows themselves, able to become a literal ghost until he needed to attack.

That meant, the best way for him to affect combat was to attack and either disrupt or kill high-value back-line targets, people like Olivia and myself, with a lesser focus on people like Adra, when she was using her bow. To take out someone like Adra, he simply needed to be swift and sneaky, while being able to deal enough damage on that first attack, before she could attempt to escape. His weapon-enchantment was a good first step to make his strikes lethal and maybe, sticking with the idea of an assassin, we could find him some poison to use.

On the other hand, people like Olivia and myself would have some sort of magical defence, something like the Eisblumen that could swat him away, or the Sanctuary Olivia had shown me before. Or some other method, an active defence similar to the potentially instant strikes of my Mind Magic, capable of stopping his attack at the speed of a thought. If he found a way to bypass such magical effects, to get a magical defense of his own, to off-set theirs, he would be a holy terror on the field of battle. An assassin, sneaking up on a spell-caster, able to cut through their defensive magic and immune to a last-second magical counter-attack? That sounded like something no healer on the battle-field wanted to think about, nor any mage. But it also sounded like an excellent ally to have.

While I pondered, half-heartedly keeping an eye on the field of battle, Sigmir and Rai continued to demolish our attackers. They simply couldn’t get past Sigmir and curiously, they didn’t really try. Instead of trying to get across the walls, the absolute majority tried to get through Sigmir, despite their allies blocking the way. It was another display of their nonsensical nature, a single-minded focus on attacking the nearest, living target, instead of some tactical intelligence. Some turned around, if they noticed Rai, but those, too, were far and few between, quickly killed by him. The rest simply focused on Sigmir and almost waited their turn to get dispatched by her axe.

“We never noticed just how strange they act.” Lenore muttered within my mind, watching the same, confusing behaviour I was.

“No, we always attacked them like we would approach intelligent beings, with a powerful strike to thin the herd, so to speak, before moving in as a group.” I shook my head at the sheer absurdity, the dissonance between the necessary intelligence to recognise the slick Ice as an obstacle and instantly apply the most direct, if simple, tactic to deal with it, while failing to recognise the walls as obstacles, simply because there was a convenient opening, with a living being ready to do battle guarding it.

“Rai?” I shouted, loud enough to be heard across the field, “Are you still testing new things, or can we continue on?” I asked, as the slow battle a simple waste of time if he wasn’t testing any longer. Moments later, as he vanished on the other side of the field, I noticed his teleporting approach, the repeated exposure allowing me to track him more readily.

“I think I’ve got the basics down, I’ll have to think and experiment to get more.” he replied, after stepping out of the shadows.

“Good.” I turned to Adra, “You got anything you want to try?” When she shook her head, I nodded, giving a glance to Olivia, simply to make sure she wasn’t about to test something before stepping to the wall, near Sigmir.

“The enchantments will fade in a few moments.” I warned her, just so she wasn’t surprised by the sudden loss of strength and speed. When she gave a brief nod of acknowledgement, likely aware through our connection, I jumped up, easily landing on the Ice Wall. It was mine, and no matter how slick, I would never slip off it.

Standing high above the skeletons below, they instantly noticed me and started to surge towards me, now recognising my existence as a target, just like they recognised Sigmir. Again, they demonstrated their weird mental processes, flooding against the wall and starting to form a ramp of bodies, kneeling so others could step onto their bony backs to get at me.

Not that it truly mattered, not once Lenore landed on the staff I was holding out, the skull set within glowing with dark radiance and death. For a moment, I could smell the power in the air, strong enough to send a shiver down my spine, the amount of pure Death, the stillness and silence of the grave, wafting off the skull, conjoined with the comfortable scent of Darkness. After the power was gathered, it radiated outwards, the skeletons coming apart, getting swept away by Lenore’s power, with nothing but piles of bones remaining.

Once she was done, her power spent, Lenore hopped off the staff, flowing into her Hallow to recover. It would take her some time but given that all but five skeletons were crushed and those five looked quite battered, for undead skeletons, there wasn’t a need for her to return to the field of battle.

With the lowered number, Sigmir charged out for the first time, just as Rai was stepping through the shadows, reappearing behind one of the skeletons further back. Two quick stabs later, one with each blade, and the skeleton fell apart, while Sigmir’s Lok’Nar swept through the attempted parry of another, causing bones to break and scatter.

Another of the skeletons suddenly exploded into shards of bone, an azure line leading back to Adra, who had used an overcharged arrow to deliver enough Wind-magic to blow it to pieces. It was incredibly inefficient, the entire strengthening effect her magic had on her arrows wasted but she didn’t want to just laze around. Demonstrating proper efficiency, I used the Ice-Astral-Power I had used to conjure the walls and the slippery floor, turning them into a shower of razor-sharp icicles and shredding one of them, easily landing on the ground as it fell apart.

The last skeleton was charged by Sigmir and Rai stepped through the shadows, appearing behind it and I wasn’t quite sure who managed to end it. Rai’s blades were within its skull, glowing with magic-devouring darkness, while Sigmir’s Lok’Nar had scattered everything below the skull. Either way, it was very thoroughly destroyed.

I was just about to look through the event-log, just to check if there was anything out of the ordinary when Rai let out a gasp.

“We need to leave. Now!” he ordered, his voice sharp, fear and caution warring within. While I was curious, I wasn’t about to ask, not with that kind of urgency and we all followed his order, booking it down-hill and away, as fast as we were able to run.