Risen Short Story #9

Piranha Bytes’ official Risen website has been updated with a ninth short story entitled “Restless Bones”.

Breathing heavily, the man worked his way along a narrow cave pathway. Metal clinked before him. It sounded like a sword dashing against chain mail.
(Not again(. A sigh escaped the intruder’s lips. After he had to defeat wolves at the entrance to the cave and later ghouls, the next opponent was waiting for him here. The flickering light of the smoking torch illuminated a hall-like widening of the cave. The sound of feet running up to him reminded him to draw his sword.

Not a moment too soon. Cream-coloured bones peeled themselves out of the darkness. Tattered chain mail hung from the chest and down over the pelvic bone. Empty eye sockets stared across at him or perhaps not, who could possibly say? With sword raised, joints cracking and yet silently, the skeleton rushed towards him.

The remains of some unlucky warrior had been revived by magic to undead life. The first hits of the attacker bounced off the sword of the intruder, raised in defence. A parry, then a manoeuvre, an attack from the left. The skeleton parried. Mechanically, as if taught. Or was it magic? A quick step to the side, a blow from the left, turn, one from the right and one full tilt from above. Then back. Bones splintered and the skeleton shattered into its individual parts. The remnants of the rusty chain mail crumpled up and fell to the ground. The skull behind it. It formed the peak of the pyramid out of the remains. The jagged sword had disappeared into a wide curve in the darkness.

(Keep going.(