Sessions in spead writing.

  If you were told you had only so long to live, what would you do with the time you had left?

The heat of the sun felt so wrong on a day such as this, so cold was the intent it seemed it should be a cold winters night, not a bright over hot sunny day. They had come in the day, so unlike them in the past. So many had been killed in the initial phase, when the fighting truly began the deaths only mounted, walls of the dead were made as it turned into a desperate struggle to survive. Then, finally help came in the form of our own bravely marching into the slaughter. Here we fight, here I chase my own death. By my own actions I have but doomed myself. As I have doomed so many others.



Running along the wall of a falling tower, wearing white lacquered armor, seemingly a suit of one piece, yet moving as if many parts when in reality it was an extension of the man who wore it, as was the curved blade within his grasp. Brown hair blew in the wind, hie hard gray eyes staring intently ahead.

"The Tower is broken! The Phoenix is slain!" Shouted the thinner man of red hair and green eyes. The man stared at him as he leaped backward along the wall, taking two or three steps before leaping again. In his hand a bow, his other hand pulling the string of the bow back, an arrow growing from his fingers. Reaching the furthest it would extend he released, the arrow flying straight and true.

The white armored man swung his sword hand without really thinking, the blade molding itself into a shield the arrow bounced harmlessly off. "The Tower maybe broken Shamieal, but the Phoenix is only fallen. As a Knight even you would know the Phoenix is never truly slain." shouted Denarlic, eighth of the fifteen Knights of The Temple.

"The Light of the Knights may dim but we will return," growled Denarlic as his shield reformed into a sword then into a spear as he pulled his arm back. Before he could throw Shamieal jumped from the wall of the tower, turning in the air, his bow now a large tube upon his shoulder that spouted an explosive missile into the wall of the tower, already cracked and riddled with holes.

Denarlic stumbled for a minute before rolling, letting momentum carry him forward. Coming to his feet just at the edge of the hole Denarlic jumped affter Shamieal and shouted at the man, "The queen shall weep for what terror she has wrought on this day!" He thrust his spear forward as Shamieal opened his mouth to angrily shout a retort, his face freezing as the spear punctured his lightly armored body, sliding through. The Spear flashed from existence as the man known as Shamieal began to truly fall.

Landing on the branch of a nearby tree Denarlic had no time to watch his greatest rival fall the thousands of feet to the body littered ground. Another of the Queen's Knight's jumped in front of him, chasing another of the White Knights. Indeed he was the eighth of fifteen but the greatest of them had vanished long ago and the order had grown to number in the hundreds, at one point reaching the thousands. The only ones able to even oppose them had been the Queen and her Knights, gifted as the White Knights were. Only the original fifteen White Knights had even a remote idea of whence their gifts had come and even then it was difficult to say as the 'Original' now meant the more senior and sole apprentices of THE original Knights whom had built the tower with their own hands as a place to meet, as a place to be safe.

Now the tower stood tall and broken, knights fighting one another. The Phoenix, or the Tower, fighting the Queen. Denarlic could weep for it.

Thrusting his hand forward, the spear he had thrown flashed into existence in his grasp, not a simple staff, tripping up the Queen's Knight. The woman gave a cry as she fell from mid jump, hitting a branch below with her shins. She began to scream as she began to flip uncontrollably towards the ground.

The Knight, really a young adult still shouted a thanks to Denarlic before three Queen's Knights crossed his path, one smashing the young Knight's head into his shoulders.

There was little Denarlic could do as White knights rose from below the tree-tops to avenge the now dead White Knight. Jumping from the branch to another he kept moving. Striking or blocking as he moved. In a battle like this one could not stay in one place at all. There were too many Knights.

Pain blossomed in his right leg, the flat of a blade slapping his hamstring. A brief grunt he couldn't quite hold in escaped his lips as he lost his balance and his course and fell. His constant movement had brought him closer to the ground, though not nearly enough to fall with any expectation of survival. Catching a branch just short of a hundred feet above ground with his right hand, Denarlic winced as his shoulder took most of the shock, numbing the arm. His left hand shot out, his weapon forming a glove over it, talons extending, breaking into the trunk of the tree, leaving long gouges in the tree, slowing Denarlic's fall.

The talons weren't enough, no matter how sharp or long they were, to stop his decent but they were enough to slow it enough that when he finally hit the ground he only fell from the exhaustion and soreness of being scraped, bumped and otherwise harassed by the tree. A groan slip through his lips as he rolled over, his taloned hand the only he could use to push himself up onto his knees. Struggling to his feet he slipped up, falling on his right arm which had begun feeling once more. He muffled his scream of pain to a whimpering gasp.

This time he lay there for several seconds before slowly raising from the ground, gritting his teeth against the pain of his arm as he relieved the weight from the now swollen limp. The shoulder was dislocated and he thought the elbow was as well and judging by the amount of swelling and the pain of the limb, something was broken.

As he rose to his feet, he made sure of his footing and maneuvered his right arm so repeat of his last fall wouldn't happen. Finally on his feet Denarlic was able to look around himself. Bodies lay everywhere. Knights of the Queen and Knights of the Phoenix, bodies of both sides lay still and broken. Some bloody, others miraculously not.

Shouts in the distance. Soldiers of the Queen's army, men and women armed well but without the gifts of the Knights. They were capable fighters, but without the gifts they would be outmatched. Though the Knights of the Queen here more than made up for that. If the the Queen's Knights couldn't kill a White Knight, they would do all they could to wound or otherwise limit a White Knight's fighting capabilities so the regular soldiers could finish the Knights of the Phoenix.

Still the Phoenix army still stood, though the last time he had seen any element of his own Knight's army they were being routed. Each Knight of the Phoenix tended to have their own followers, though any army of a White Knight was greatly limited in terms of numbers. Still thousands flocked to each knight if not to the army. With the main army broken that left each knight's own force of soldiers to fend for themselves if they couldn't find their Knights to command them.

Running back to the tower, away from the shouts, Denarlic closed his mind to the pain of his arm, to bodies of his friends and comrades, to the pain of the world. He ran, not out of fear or a sense that he must live, but of a sense of urgency for the tower, for his family hidden inside, for the soldiers who may already be dead as they waited for him to lead them against the Queen's army. stumbling over a body Denarlic finally arrived on the paved grounds that surrounded the tower. Here the scene was worse. Not only were there bodies of soldiers and knights, but the bodies of farmers, traders, of the weak and the strong. So many people who shouldn't have been involved. Now dead as the Queen send forth her army, to crush the Phoenix, to smother not only it's spirit but it's rebirth as well.

"Daddy! Daddy where are you!" His heart lurched. This daughter! What was she doing out here? Running in the direction of the voice, his knowledge that it was her driving him to instinctively know which direction it came from, something few others not bearing the gift could do, he saw her now, she stood alone in her plain white dress, blood marring it, a shining blade grasped in her hand. Only thirteen and she had seen death already! Had been forced to take the life of the soldier at her feet.

"Here! I am here dear little one," Denarlic yelled as he ran towards her. Instantly she whipped around and a bright smile appeared on her face. "Daddy!" She shouted and ran forward. She hadn't called him daddy in four years. Not since she had 'grown up and shouldn't speak like a child any more' as she had told him. Denarlic, though worried his daughter was out in the open, was glad to see her unharmed and alive.

From the corner of his eye he watched as an arrow flew through the air. he wondered if it was a stray or....NO!

"Down little one down!" He shouted. His daughter slowed her pace, an expression of confusion crossing her face before she went down. Denarlic screamed at the world as his daughter, who had obeyed him too late jerked to the side, not even able to scream as the arrow punctured her chest at an angle.

His taloned hand grasped at his chest as he felt his heart chill as he watch the body of his daughter fall. Tears fell freely from their tracks through the dirt and grime on his face. His right hand, broken and swollen reached out to her. He whispered her name as his head hung low as he dropped to his knees, his right arm falling uselessly at his side. The talons of his left hand covered in blood from his chest. Slowly he removed the talons, his body numb to the pain.

Unfeeling he stood and crossed to his daughter's body. There he stared down, his mind blanked. Nothing in the world mattered anymore to him. His world was gone. Shattered in the tower, then lost with his daughter. A spark within his mind flashed for an instant, jerking his body. A spark where his world had once been flashed again, then blossomed and grew into a thought.

The queen must die.