10 years ago

Ander pelanus looked out into his army, and It was raining gently. He led only one hundred men, but though many believed otherwise, they were still a deadly force. Ander had trained them all one by one until they could each take on two men at once with ease. It had also helped them all gain a personal bond with Ander.

"Caedric," Ander yelled to his younger second in command. "Are the men ready?"

"If you mean all geared up, then yes," Ander's long time friend said. "But I don't know that anyone's ever ready for a war."

"I think that depends on who anyone is," Ander said. He was ready for a war. A personal war against the king who took everything from him.

Nanath's horn sounded and everyone ran forward quickly. Ander's army was outnumbered three to one, but in his experience, that's how all of the best battles started out.

"Fire now," Ander yelled.

His army had twenty five archers all trained to be able to shoot between links of chain. They had aken the most time to train, but Ander had found them invaluable. Ander carried a bow as well, but he mostly stuck with his sword and shield.

Ander's army was mainly supposed to keep these reinforcements from getting to Eris and Jakob's armies, where they could flank and destroy the two leaders. If Craith won this battle, they could take Tebes, which was tight next to the capital of Balis.

Ander noticed horses charging at them. "Spear's up," he shouted to Honorious, who led the other nineteen spearmen. The spearmen all raised spears at seemingly random times, but Ander knew that they were raising the spears the moment they knew the horses couldn't stop momentum.

As they collided together all that could be heard was gut-renching screams and screeching metal. Ander looked up as the carnage cleared and saw, with great joy, that no one had died, but one man had been injured.

"Ferris," Ander yelled to the medic. "Henry needs some assistence."

"On It sir," Ferris said in reply. The two of them walked off to the back, Henry limping slowly befind Ferris.

Ander heard the familiar twing of arrows being released from their bows. "Shields up," Ander heard Than yell. Everyone raised their shields, and a small group of soldiers wen to the back to shield the archers in the back.

The enemy group ran at them, angry at already losing a whole sixth of their group. "Middle position," Ander Shouted. The spearmen moved behind the shieldmen, keeping a position that allowed them to be most destructive while staying safe. Ander ran to the front of his army and shouted to his archers louder to combat his new distance from them, "Archers, fire on the opposing archers."

Ander chopped down anyone that got close to him. Several people lost legs and arms to his vicious strikes. Soon the enemy surrounded Ander acknowledging that he was both the leader and the strongest fighter in the group. Ander raised an eyebrow at the man closest to him.

They all charged at him simultaneously. That was their second mistake, the first being that they decided to fight him with so few troops. Ander stuck out his arms arms striking two of them at the time and brought his arm over grabbing another once head, which he slammed into his knee. Ander drew his wicked two edged sword. A man ran behind his and jumped to pin him, but Ander just grabbed him midair and threw him into another soldier.

Ander pointed his sword at the last man, who quickly dropped his sword. Ander chopped the sword in half. "I would run if I were you," Ander said, not even knowing if he spoke the same language. They did. The man ran away as fast as he could. Ander looked to his right and saw something that both disturbed and frightened him very much.

Balis had released an eviscerator, a huge monster capable of tearing down stone buildings with its bare hands. They could only be made with the dead bodies of humans.

"Archers," Ander shouted loudly. "Take that thing down." The archers shot arrow after arrow all in rapid succession. Ander and his other soldiers kept the other group of soldiers at bay.

Ander felt a sharp pain in his calf and looked down. He had been shot by an arrow. Ander looked back and saw yet another group of soldiers flanking them. "Circle position," Ander tried shouting, but his voice had died. Luckily Caedric had heard his command and repeated it for the other troops to hear.

The archers moved to the middle and surrounded Ferris, after the archers were in position, the spearmen circled around them, and after that came the swordsmen. The other group of soldiers started running at them. Ander was worried that if this became a drawn out fight, his fight would lose, which was something that couldn't happen.

Ander took out his bow and shot as fast as he could, locking his stone arm to keep it's aim as steady as possible. After only twenty three shots the string snapped. Ander's men were faring well, while Eris and Jakob's were dropping fast. The eviscerator tore through their numbers faster than arrows could fly into it.

"Caedric," Ander said. "Take care of the men, I'll be right back." Ander ignored the arrow in his calf and sprinted toward the larger battle. Arrows flew fast, but his shield blocked faster. As soon as Ander reached the main army he started helping out where he could on the way to the eviscerator. He was currently in Eris's army, and so was the eviscerator.

Ander started running even faster, knowing that every person the eviscerator killed would make it stronger. It slowly tore through Eris's army. He looked to his army and saw that they were doing just fine. He heard pounding.

When Ander turned back around, he saw the eviscerator charging at him. He raised his shield and the abomination threw him twelve feet with just one punch. "Get out of here," Ander yelled to Eris's men, knowing that his dead voice probably made him sound like a moron. They still ran away. The thing ran at him again, but this time Ander sidestepped out of the way of its fist and chopped off the thing's arm with all of his force. The thing was all skin and no bones after all.

The eviscerator screamed in fury. It couldn't get that arm back until it killed many more people. Ander wouldn't let that happen. He put his sword away and held his fists in a fighting position. "Hey," Ander challenged the beast. "Let's see who the real monster is, eh."

The eviscerator tried to leap on him, but he rolled out of the way and started tearing pieces off it. The stone arm was much better at this, but it wasn't nearly as fast as the human arm. The monster was soon less than half a head taller than Ander.

Then the eviscerator finally got a good hit on him. It may have been feet smaller than usual, but it's limbs still contained a lot of muscle, luckily much less else Ander's whole body would be broken. Ander was knocked back several feet. He landed on his back right next to a dead pikeman.

"He pry won't be needing it," Ander said as he pried the man's pike from his dead fingers. The eviscerator had turned around, thinking Ander was dead. Ander threw the pike with as much force as he could, putting in a little spin for accuracy. He threw it hard enough to pierce the creature's whole body. He must have hit something vital like the demon container because the monster fell and Ander knew the truth.

He had been the greater of the two monsters. Ander didn't think that was a bad thing. Monsters were, of course, the strongest things around. that just meant that Ander was the best of the best. It could, however, be hard being the best sometimes.

Ander jogged back to his army, and was overjoyed to see that his soldiers weren't dead. It seemed that they had finished off the larger group well before Ander had come back, as they were resting. "Good job Caedric," Ander called to his good friend.

"Same to you," Caedric replied. "It's not every day you get to kill a full grown eviscerator alone." He pulled a curved black knife with a gold handle out of his scabbard. "Do you think they will recognize us as the ones who defeated this army?" They had fought so many battles without acknowledgement.

"Yes," Ander replied. "Show the dark circle that knife, and they would make us the king's guards."

"I would," Caedric said. "But I just have no clue what language this inscription on the side is in."

"You're not concerned with the fact that that inscription is glowing purple?" Ander asked, amused.

"I think that just raises the amount of things the dark circle would give us for it." Caedric smiled.

"Come on," Ander said. "I'm sure our allies would appreciate a helping hand." He pointed to the larger battle downstream. Ander mostly just wanted to see Eris. He had been in a steady relationship with her for some time now. She had good looks and was slender without her armor, but it wasn't her good looks that made Ander attracted to her, it was their common beliefs in warfare and her skills in fighting.

Ander's company grabbed their things and headed toward the battle. Ander directed his men to the back of Balis's army because he couldn't know who they would find if they just popped in some random area in the middle. "Archers," Ander started, but then he stopped his thought. "Well, we just fought organized, let's go freestyle."

Ander knew all his men to make rational choices, and he wanted to see how much they had learned since the last time he had allowed them to fight free of command. If they started messing up he would just reign them in. All of his troops decided to go with strategic choices, so the archers just shot at the horsemen, while the swordsmen just went for the backing archers. By the time Balis noticed them, the battle was already drawing to a close. Many of the soldiers simply dropped their weapons as their commanders yelled at them.

"Hey," Ander yelled. "I am Ander Pelanus of Chraith. To those of you who are encouraging your men to die pointlessly, I ask you to send your best soldier to fight me one on one. He may be armed, I won't be. If I win, you all surrender to our terms, but if they win, We'll leave Tebes alone."

The commanders seemed to really like that wager. They liked it so much, in fact, that they brought out their fighter before Ander finished the word Tebes. The person they chose was a massive men, who stood a good foot taller than Ander and carried a huge metal club. Ander stabbed his sword in the ground behind him.

Both armies still gaped at him as he walked towards the huge man. The man wouldn't stop smiling. "Well," Ander said. "Let's begin."

Upon hearing that, the man, who Ander decided to call Tim, Immediately swung his large club at Ander. Ander sidestepped it and then stood on top of the club, forcing it to stay on the ground. Tim was about to punch Ander, so he punched him first.

Tim grabbed a ball mace from his belt. He swung at Ander, who barely ducked out of the way. The terrifying ball of lead demolished a large piece of a tree on impact with it. Tim swung again, this time shattering Ander's patella, forcing him to crash to the ground. Ander grabbed Tim's leg with both arms and spun it, making Tim fall too. He then hobbled over to Tim and pounded his face with his stone arm repeatedly.

Ander walked away from the crushed body and said, "You will all give us your weapons and sweat, through blood oath, that you will never face any of our armies in battle again." The soldiers of Balis gave their weapons to the nearest Riftgard officer they could find.

Ander looked around and twelve people still hadn't given their weapons. The only reason that Ander really noticed thins was because they were heading toward Eris, who was turned away from them.

Ander ran for them, grinding his teeth in his pain. They unsheathed their weapons while Ander unconsciously reached for something of his. What he pulled out was his axe, which he hadn't used since the death of his parents.

"Eris," Ander screamed, depending on its sound. "Watch out." Ander had dueled against Eris several times, and knew that she could handle herself against a lone opponent, but he had no clue about whether she could handle herself when she was severely outnumbered. Eris turned around, stabbing the closest opponent through the chest while at it. Ander jumped over some soldier and chopped one of the assailants down with the relic of an axe.

Ander and Eris's soldiers cut down the opposing forces as Jakob and his men came in. Ander smiled and so did she. Jakob walked towards her.

Jakob stabbed her in the back while she was turned away. Ander screamed as soldiers rushed past him.

Ander, blinded and numbed by misery and anger, ran at Jakob, crushing the bones of anyone in his way, when he reached Jakob, he chopped off the traitors arm with his axe.

He knelt down next to Eris and said, "Where's your sword," just like he had when he had first met her six years ago and had said ever since then.

"Inside of someone else, I would guess," she said, finishing off their inside joke. Ander toned out the fighting around him, and heard only her voice.

"Everyone dies, Ander" she said softly.

"You don't have to," he said. "I can save you." He picked her up and carried her away towards the men of Balis. Hearing Jakob following him, he turned and crushed the man's windpipe with a kick, and started running, struggling through his pain.

When he got to the captives he told them that if they healed Eris, he would set them free.

"Why would we help you save a general," an old man asked.

Ander glared at the man. "If you don't, then I'll burn down every city in Balis myself."

They responded very quickly upon hearing that. Many of them said "elgro" immediately, with little effect, but the old man said it in a genuinely kind sounding way, and Eris's wounds healed.

"She needs rest," he said.

"I've got to free you first."

"You don't have to, we freed ourselves," the man said. "I just wanted to see if anyone fighting for Riftgard had a heart. It seems that some of them do."

"I wouldn't count on it." He really wasn't fighting for Riftgard, and neither were his men, and Ander didn't think even Eris fought for Riftgard. Everyone else acted mechanically.

Ander walked away from the battlefield, and so did his soldiers. When he got back to the barracks, he realized something. He had killed the only person who could explain why Jakob betrayed them.

"There will be a lot of empty rooms today, Ander," Caedric said.

"Let's just be glad that none of those rooms are one of ours."

"I would rather have no one die, but these end results are okay."

His good friends watched over his room after he set Eris into his bed while he sat at its foot on a sleepless night.