Chapter 37: The Stand

The desert was covered in darkness, its shifting sands now bathed in the pale light of a crescent moon. The wind howled softly, carrying with it the faint stench of decay that seemed to cling to this forsaken land.

A lone figure stood atop a jagged rock, his presence both commanding and unsettling.

He wore a tattered cloak that billowed lightly in the night breeze, its deep black fabric concealing the skeletal frame beneath.

His bony hand caught the moonlight, his eye sockets burned with a faint, otherworldly glow.

This was no ordinary being.

In his bony hands, he held a weapon that gleamed with menace... a scythe.

Its blade long and curved, catching the faint light with an eerie shimmer. The skeleton stood poised, his grip steady, his stance straight.

Below him, the desert roared with life or rather, with death.

A pack of rotten wolves prowled beneath the rock, their decaying bodies barely held together by sinew and malice.

Their glowing eyes cut through the darkness, their menacing growls vibrating in the air.

They moved as one, an intelligent, relentless pack that seemed to communicate without words.

Their decayed forms betrayed their origin, not beasts of nature,

But abominations.

Kael stood motionless, watching them. They had pursued him all the way here, and there where getting more by every minute that passed, he studied little of their tactics.

They were tireless and unforgiving.

The wolves circled the rock, their sharp claws scraping against the stone as they prepared to leap.

With a sudden burst of motion, one of the wolves lunged.

Kael moved just as quickly, his scythe arcing through the air with a sharp whistle.

The blade met the creature mid-leap, cleaving through its decayed body with a sickening splatter.

The wolf crumpled to the ground, lifeless.

But there were more.

The pack surged forward, emboldened by their fallen kin.

Kael met them head-on, his scythe a blur of silver as it carved through the mass of snarling bodies.

The sounds of battle filled the night, the clash of bone against claw, the wet thud of bodies hitting the ground, the growls of the wolves mixing with kael measured breaths.

For every wolf that fell, two more seemed to take its place.

Their decayed forms twitched and jerked unnaturally, as though driven by a force beyond death. The tide was unrelenting so was kael he wasn't prepared to die the second time.

Kael movements slowed, the once-fluid arcs of his scythe growing heavier. His bony shoulders rose and fell with effort, and a faint crack echoed as he pivoted too sharply. The wolves pressed harder, sensing his fatigue.

"Tireless bastards," Kael muttered under his breath, his glowing eyes narrowing.

Another wolf lunged, its teeth bared, but the skeleton barely managed to sidestep, bringing the scythe down with less precision than before.

The creature fell, but its packmates surged forward, undeterred.

Kael dismissed his scythe. He sat down with deliberate slowness, his empty sockets fixed on the pack below.

The wolves continued their assault, clawing and leaping at the base of the rock, their glowing eyes locked onto him.

For a moment, the contrast was stark, the stillness of kael, calm and contemplative, against the frenzied aggression of the wolves. Their snarls and snaps filled the air, but he remained unmoving, watching them with a quiet intensity.

His thoughts turned inward, reflecting on the battle.

"Endless. They're endless," he thought, his bony fingers drumming lightly against the rock. "Their strength isn't in their power or their speed it's in their numbers, their relentlessness."

"I can't keep fighting, not like this. They'll wear me down, no matter how what I do. I need to have a plan... to escape or kill them."

He looked back at the wolves, their decayed bodies pressing against one another as they clamored for him.

They were driven by madness and hunger to kill and devour him.

"Trust me, I am not tasty, there is nothing for you to eat in me", kael spat out.

Kael remained seated, his figure silhouetted against the moonlit sky.

For now, he sat quietly atop the rock, surrounded by the undying pack. The desert night stretched on. He muttered coldly.

"Just you wait, I will kill you all!"