194 Battle of flames and walking corpses part 2

Doreen was on the left flank of the allied army leading the royal contingent. The grey skin warriors were at the front with the human soldiers at the back. Pema, Amala and Yosef also were placed there while the Plangent siblings rode together with Rufus. Haley herself was among the human soldiers at the rear as a reserve.

"Soooooo...we are to stay here in the front and fight those well-disciplined soldiers. Seems…...lovely," Yosef complained.

"Do you know how to ride a horse or a black yak?" Amala asked.

"I could have learned…."

"Learned before the battle would have started?"

"…. I could have wanted to try."

~ ~

The first imperial battle line was getting closer and closer to the alliance army. As they were getting closer, the anxiety was getting visible on every soldiers' and warrior's face.

The varangians then charged at the mercenaries of the allied states of Etna. With their large battle-axes, they struck at the lines and with ease shocked the mercenaries. Then the varangians with halberds moved forward creating a wall of spears. The officers of the varangians were imperial nobility who supplemented and bested many of the hired sellswords. The battle tactics of the empire proved superior in every way.

Unlike against the mercenaries, when the imperial varangians were about to charge at the royal army, the grey skin warriors themselves countered the charge with their own ferocious attack. The initial shock of the varangians with great axes was stopped and halted.

When the first push was stopped, the compatriots of Rufus moved forward.

Doreen punctured ten soldiers with her spear that grew in size. She shined her shield at any who tried to get close to her and turned them into stone.

Pema bashed through the soldiers and with his fist and his kicks trampled any varangian getting close. No battle ax or halberd could hurt him through his thick black carbon layer.

Amala and Yosef in the meantime worked from behind the battle line supporting the other two with her arrows and Yosef's puppets.

The royals were winning against the imperial forces, giving them many losses, but this came to a halt soon. Pema and Doreen who were pushing back the varangians from the front then stopped fighting, as they felt a cold and vile divine aura.

A woman's corpse walked forward wielding two swords that were oozing with green liquid. She wore armor where it looked like it was made from scales and the helmet was shaped like a head of a cobra. Around her was a black substance that entangled the dead body.

Doreen lunged at the moving corpse with her spear, but with ease, it dodged the attack. Its movements were hard to read and her body twisted like she was a snake. It then swung with her two curved swords at Doreen who blocked the swords with her shield. The blow was so heavy that it forced her to step back.

A couple of grey skins rushed at the walking body, wishing to aide Doreen. It cut the attacking grey skins fast before they even realized what had happened. Their bodies fell apart, with the cuts having acid burn marks.

Pema then tried his luck in beating this new enemy. He jumped high and was coming down with his heel, but was stopped by one of the curved blades.

The green goo came forth from the blades that started to erode the carbon armored heel of Pema. His carbon skin started to corrode where the green slime touched. It was acid.

The corpse started to then twirl and spin, spewing the acid from the blades all around. Varangians, grey skins and royal soldiers, all were affected and hurt or worse by the acid, spewing from the twin blades.

Around half of the armor of Pema had eroded away because of the splattered acid. His skin had some bad burns, but his face was unfazed. Doreen herself was fine when she had blocked it with her shield as it was strong enough to protect her.

The woman's corpse smiled creepily, but was then interrupted when a stone arrow hit her right between her lifeless eyes.

Pema and Doreen thought they had killed her, but then the corpse just pulled out the arrow. It then looked around trying to see where the arrow came from.

When it saw Amala, she already was aiming another arrow at it. Amala then released it at the living corpse, but it cut it down with her sword before it could hit. The two arrow pieces then exploded into two large spiky stones, piercing the corpse all over.

"You think that did it?" Yosef asked.

The corpse then shrugged off the stones that had pierced it and cut them down. Its head was about to fall off, but the black thing around him, what was Cixilo, pulled the head back and rearranged the broken bones and rotting flesh back together.

"Nope….." Amala answered back.