Hanging on Bones

Chapter 4: Obstacle course of Bones

The chase is on. Whatever I do, I will never be able to outrun them by sheer speed. I might be far quicker than average skeleton, but I still did not get used to my new state of being. Besides I was never good at running through obstacle courses. The bunch of scary humans behind my back have solid grasp on it. Each time I change the row of graves I’m forced to slow down. They on the other hand, seem to change them as they please, without losing even fraction of their speed. That means they see in the dark at least as good as I do. What are they mutated awls or something?

Either way, the place where I met my fallen comrades, steep hill and the ladder like staircase. That is supposed to be my goal, but at this rate I’m not going to make it. It requires too many changes in rows that come with loss of speed.

I keep on the highest speed I can manage on the current lane of graves, abandoning that plan.

“Damn it!” Someone shouts.

Suddenly I feel jolt and quickly look around.

The two veterans, are closest to me, but they have put themselves on my sides. The moment I change direction in either way, I would shorten distance separating me from one of them. The bunch of trainees, which in my opinion look way to strong and well-armed, are directly behind me. The mages, are far off behind everyone. At least I won’t get burned to crisp. While I look in the middle of a run, second by second our distance is slowly disappearing.

“Move your asses people! We’re almost on it!” – shouts one of the veterans.

I must do at least something! Looking ahead, there is absolutely no change in the landscape that I can use to my advantage!

But then it’s as if bulb flicked on above my head. The jolt! I felt no pain and no discomfort what so ever, but something must have hit me!

I take a look around and sure enough there is some kind of strange curved blade embedded in two of my ribs. I reach for it in haste but stumble and almost fall. Whoa. Better be careful now. I lost a bit of speed because of that, but I’m still in the safe. Reaching for it more carefully, I manage to dislodge it. Bringing it before me I’m quite surprised. Why the hell do they have all these weird weapons? Isn’t it fine with one or two standardized types of weapons, like their armours are? I just pulled from out of my back fancy looking scimitar. This is situation is soooo f**king surreal. Who the hell throws such a weapon? Well it’s not like I’m complaining for the gift or anything.

“Alex! You imbecile! Now it’s armed damn it! If you’re not the one to take it down, you’ll be in sh*t load of trouble for this!!” – shouts one of the veterans.

“Yessir!” –female voice shouts back from just behind me.

That psychotic girl again! I’m ready to kiss her for her stupidity. Now I at least have a chance!

Another glimpse back and I see in a horror that they are almost upon me. All three rows filled with them to the brim. The red haired mountain of a woman with mad look in her eyes and feral grin, is at the lead of the pack. And this is supposed to be a girl!? She’s holding enormous looking two handed greatsword supported on her shoulder and ready for a swing. Wholly sh**t!!! No wonder she threw that fancy stick of a sword at me!!

No more time!!! No more time!!!

I look ahead and with flash of inspiration I grab with my left hand the trunk of thin sapling standing few meters tall. Under normal circumstances it would never support my weight. It was a bet I had to take, but luckily it withstood my abuse while I used it as a pivot point. In big wide arc motion, I made total turn around. Speed and inertia of this movement, together with the snapback of the tree when I completed the turn, wrenched my whole left arm out of its socket. My hand was left still gripping it, while I ploughed through the mob of people. The shocked looks on their faces, were almost comical. Flat of the blade facing forward was proving to be good enough shield. The seminar, stood up to the abuse admirably. I was holding it at upper chest level with it’s tip ending just above my head. Luckily the only blows it had to endure were sporadic feeble slashes of the weakest trainees left at the back of the group. The front group didn’t have enough time to react to my sudden change of direction.

As I cleared last of them I made quick glance back to see that my beloved, honourable, lifesaving little tree, was already in last stages of topping over. It was cut cleanly through by that brute woman. Slashed at the height where my neck should have been if I made the turn just seconds later. She has incredible reach with that sword.

“GWWRRAAAAAAAAA” – incoherent rage filled roar came from the muscle mountain of a woman. And she’s the trainee!? God damn I don’t want to think what pros are like.

With sudden realization I snap back to scan what’s in front of me. Sure enough there’s robbed figure in the distance, making weird movements with one hand and holding up high long wooden staff, crowned with a crystal bal. There is ark of electricity starting to snap between them and without further ado I drop to the side. The headstone I roll behind explodes into thousands of pieces.

Time is way more precious than gold now. But I’m forced to stop still in order to take my bearings. The lack of limb slightly shifting centre of my weight, coupled with shockwave, caused my roll to change into rollercoaster. The cloud of dust and stone shards raining down also contributed to the confusion. Running while not knowing which direction I’m facing, is generally not a good idea. Luckily the uniform direction of all the graves in the vicinity is dead giveaway where my goal should be.

This time I choose to sprint straight uphill. It's way more difficult as every three or so meters I have to squeeze between, or jump over the headstones. I'm betting on the fact that this might tire them out enough for me to start increasing the distance. They are mortal with limited stamina after all. This way will also allow me to miss the dubious pleasure of meeting the other fellow with bazookas shooting out of his hands.

This is the same hill I met my first pack on. I'm sure to find that very steep incline sooner or later and if I’m lucky enough, I might even get to use treacherous ladder like stairway from before. I'm hundred percent sure they would not be able to climb that thing more than one person at a time. It would also be very easy to defend or ambush the ones climbing it.

As I jump over one of the many graves in my way, another lightning bolt strikes to my left in front of me. Luckily the other mage is not as precise as his quicker fellow.

“Move it you lazy bastards!!!” I hear one of the veterans shout.

With the advantages of still quite gentle slope, greater speed and being able to go diagonally instead of following my patch, they should be closing in on me quite quickly. But instead it seems that most of the trainees failed to properly react to sudden change of situation. To the point that few of them collided with each other and fallen to the ground. Resulting chaos slowed down whole bunch considerably. Still the berserker woman, slimmer of the veterans, and three others have detached from group and are closing in quite fast.

No matter the number, once someone catches up to me that will be over. The tirelessness of them is really scary. When I was alive, just one tenth of the distance we covered just now would have me down on the ground coughing my lungs out. Just how long will it take for them to ease down!? I guess it’s better to not count on it. For all I know they might be cyborgs with nuclear powered cores or something. They sure are big enough for that.

I have to slow them down somehow!

But how…. I glance at the scimitar. I have only one hand and there’s no way I’m throwing this away to gain few seconds. It's the first time I held such a thing. I’m not any kind of a swordsman, but if push comes to shove, this might be my last ray of hope. Ah! I know!

I extend my arm out as far as it goes and stab myself with all my might. The blade securely lodges between my ribs. One problem solved. Finally having my hand free I immediately bend down and scoop up glass candle holder that is still flickering. In one swift motion I straighten out, turn and throw it at the closest of my pursuers. To my surprise it’s a perfect square hit and the veteran that is leading crashes with huge impact into the headstone he was just about to jump over. He was waaay too close for my comfort and if not for this success, shortly after I would be the one lying on the ground.

Using this short stop I take quick look to the left. I see that at least the mages have stamina comparable to the one I used to have. They are barely visible far in the distance, standing there and making complicated gestures, with staffs secured to their backs. They sure are doing some magic, but with so many obstacles and trees between us, I’m confident anything they throw straight at me, would stop far too short. On the right, not far from me, are the four remaining trainees, with the female gorilla at the lead. I turn around and resume my full on obstacle course. Luckily the slope is already rising sharply and the cliff like staircase can be seen in the distance. If only i manage to get to the top, i can use the elevation to my advantage at keeping them off of me. Maybe I can even get rid of one or two.

Suddenly I feel a chill run through me. On this hunch I take another quick look at the mages. Surprisingly one is lying on the ground while the other is missing. The hell? I just hope anything that happened was in my favour. You should not look gifted horse in the mouth, but with all that’s happening I prefer to embrace the paranoia.

Few moments of my vigilant attention to details all around me and still nothing happened.

….

Giving a mental sigh I check how far the four are.

There! Finally. I thought it would never happen!

The speed with which the four are gaining on me has dropped. With this I will be able to reach my, oh so desired, impossible stairway. Now the only one that still has a chance at catching me is the mountain girl. One and the same. My unintentional saviour and worst nightmare in one person. From the beginning she was the one that wanted to kill me the most. I doubt even this staircase will stop her chase.

I might as well risk it again. Being used to the motions already, without losing too much speed, I pick up and throw burned out plastic candle box. She seems to be ready for it, and brushes it aside without slowing even a little. That only wasted me some time.

I’m almost at the feet of my goal and just seconds away from jumping up on to the staircase but something seems wrong. I cannot put my finger on it, but still…. The grave with headstone split in half, is lying directly below it, providing perfect two step launching platform that if used, would get me half way up the staircase in one go. The grave preceding it has no headstone whatsoever, providing the clear space needed for speed up before the jump. Call me paranoiac, but this is way too good to be true.

I took the instant decision that can cost me my life. The moment I took the final step and should have jumped up, I dropped down to the ground and hit bottom stair with huge impact. Two things happened at that moment. First was the huge semi-circular blade with handle joining both of its ends slammed into the spot where I would have landed. The second being split second later, when lightning bolt hit the spot few feet above the blade. Either of them would without any doubt end my second life. I will definitely believe my instincts more now.

Not wasting any moment, I quickly start climbing. I have no clue how the mage got in range, but I’ve seen this blade on the back of veteran that crashed into the grave. I guess he’s not in command just for his speed and age. The climb is very hard with one arm missing, but the additional footholds of that weapon and hole made by lighting are proving useful. As I move I hear the shouts and curses of everyone involved. I ignore them.

After just few moments I’m on the top. Risking it, I take a quick look around. It seems the veteran in the far back got smart. Instead of mobbing this small passage, he divided his slower trainees into two even groups of four. Sending them in both directions along the hill, he took the lead of group to my right, while the other was running at the mage to my left. One or both of these groups will have possibility to encircle me if they find better way up. The mage seems to be frantically searching through pouches at his belt. The dauntless veteran with three others are dozen or so meters behind the redhead.

The flames of bloodlust in her eyes are matching her hair colour perfectly. She is about to use the launching platform. The greatsword is stashed securely at her back and instead, both of her hands free while she’s holding another scimitar by her teeth. Where the hell is she keeping all those weapons and why the hell I didn’t think of that!?

The next moment she’s in the air and I don’t want to see more. Going deeper into the small clearing I try to pull out blade stuck in my chest. As I’m hidden from their sight I hear laud curse of the mage. Seems like the thing he was looking for was meant for me.

Finally succeeding at getting the blade out, I hear crashing sound behind me and turn around. Having one foot and one hand on ground to support her, the monster of a woman is already rising to my level. With the other hand she’s reaching for her biggest weapon. The sound I heard was scimitar hitting the stones as she released it. She must have took it with her only in case I try to attack her when she is climbing or reaching the top. Which was my intention by the way.

Now there’s only about three meters between us. I can clearly see how she’s heaving with every breath. The face that otherwise would be called beautiful, is now distorted with feral grin of joyful predator about to tear into it’s pray.

"Now this is what I call fun..." says my nemesis.

I feel phantom chills run down my spine.

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