Your Choice

Anna stared up, stepping back, both in fear and indecision.

She had few options. The undead seemed to want the pall, but what she could do with it to fight them was limited. Maybe it could fend off some of their attacks, much like it stopped the crossbow bolt, but against this many? They would overwhelm it.

“Make your choice!” the apparition demanded.

Anna refused to answer, instead readying herself for the first of the Bog Dead.

It lunged clumsily for the pall.

Anna danced aside, swiping the pall away at the last moment. The peat preserved abomination, stumbled and crashed into the soggy ground with a splat. Clayton kicked it as it was down, doing his best to keep it from getting back up.

The next undead came at Anna, focused for the pall. She repeated as the first, though this time sticking her foot out to trip it. It staggered gracelessly before flopping on top of the first. The two started to entangle each other in their attempts to stand up.

“You think you’re so clever,” the apparition sneered. “But do you really think that is going to work for long?”

He had a point. The others were progressively approaching in waves that would soon number several at a time.

“Submit to the inevitable.”

She kept the apparition on ignore.

“Any fast ideas– anything?” Anna called over to Clayton.

He just laughed back helplessly, his voice pitching high with nerves.

The hovering Wisps started flashing brighter in unison, seeming to respond to the laugh.

Four of the five left the surface of the water, flying up to meet the apparition in the air. They began orbiting the spirit at a slow speed, spread out evenly in their encirclement.

“What do you want?” he asked with an irritated mutter. “You’re supposed to be harassing her, not me.”

The spheres all responded with a single brighter flash.

The speed of the orbiting spheres increased. “Neat trick,” the apparition toned with sarcasm, uninterested.

Suddenly one of the spheres broke from the ring, launching out at the apparition, striking him directly in the abdomen with the force of a bowling ball. The spirit grunted from both the shock of the collision and the pain it caused.

“Hey!” he growled, enraged. “Not me. Her!” He stabbed downwards with a slender finger.

As the first sphere rejoined the orbital ring, the next launched out, striking the apparition from behind. “Oof!” The strike was enough to send him forward in the air a few feet.

Before he could recover, the next sphere hit him. Then another. Then another.

The spheres took turns battering the apparition repeatedly. He howled with rage, darting about in the air, trying to outmaneuver them. They were more agile and continued their assault. He swung his fists at them, his small hands bouncing off their glowing surfaces ineffectively.

“Stop it!” he yelled. “I command you! Stop!”

The Wisps continued attacking repeatedly, slamming into the apparition over and over, making him appear increasingly frazzled and winded.

Below, the Bog Dead simply watched, halted in place, enthralled by the mid-air brawl.

Anna felt a hand press to the back of her vest. “Now’s our chance,” Clayton whispered.

Whether the distraction was intentional or not, that was for another time. The pair turned to slip away.

The fifth sphere left its place hovering over the pool to intercept them.

“Oh no,” Clayton gasped faintly.

Anna grimly stepped in front of him, still holding out the pall, presenting it for the sphere to make a charge.

Instead the Wisp bounced in place several times above the ground before bouncing to the next spot. It bounced several times there, then sprung to the next spot, bouncing there as if some kind of game of hopscotch.

“Wait, it is showing us where to step,” Clayton translated.

Once the pair understood, the sphere bounced once from step to step, like a karaoke bouncing ball, indicating where to go to find the surest footing.

The pair made their escape.

One undead noticed.

“Where are you going!” the apparition demanded, infuriated, jerking aside to narrowly avoid another incoming sphere.

He started to fly in their direction to cut them off but another sphere immediately rammed into him. The strike was enough to send the spirit careening off course, crashing to the ground.

The apparition shook his head from the dizziness, getting up slowly on his hands and knees. Before he could do something more, another sphere brutally sideswiped him, throwing the spirit back to the ground.

He tried to rise again. Another sphere pummeled him.

“Apprentice!” His voice cracked with fear. “Command them!”

“Do not look back,” Clayton instructed.

Anna looked back anyhow.

Another sphere smashed against the spirit’s back, shoving him face first into the peat. He let out a sharp pained sound, grievously wounded.

Now with the apparition grounded, the Bog Dead no longer just stared. They began ambling towards him.

“He’s incorporeal, how can they be hurting him?”

“Maybe undead can affect other undead differently than humans can?”

The karaoke sphere bounced in place with urgency.

“Anna, we need to go. Now.”

“But-”

“How can you help? Use necromancy? No. We go while we have a chance. Once they are done with him, they will turn on us.”

The spheres hovered over the fallen apparition, taking turns hammering on him in rapid succession. Any time the spirit tried to push himself up, another devastating blow ground him face down into the muck.

The Bog Dead continued their march, closer and closer. Even those nearest to Anna and Clayton seemed uninterested in them, instead drawn singularly to the fading periwinkle glow.

The air was filled with repeated dull thuds as the unrelenting bludgeoning continued.

The spirit moaned, repeatedly piledrived into the soggy peat.

“Anna,” the young man pleaded.

“Ok. I know.” She averted her eyes, looking ahead, keeping her attention on Clayton’s feet as he closely followed the bouncing karaoke sphere. Despite her fatigue the fear of the Bog Dead catching them drove her forward.

Her feet carried her, faster and faster. Sights and sounds seemed to blur, her mind focused solely on the increasing tempo.

Wails carried through the fog.

Anna paused briefly, glancing back. The Bog Dead were now atop the spirit, their hands on her shape, doing terrible things to her form. The horror of that froze her in place.

“Anna, keep up!”

She tried to move but couldn’t.

A ragged scream carried across the bog.

Clayton grabbed her hand. He pulled her ahead, forcing her to follow, the scene behind fading into the haze.

The distant screams became hoarse, then abruptly stopped, lost to the drizzle of the rain.

Anna slipped her hand into her joey pocket.

The stylus within carried no chill.