Dance Of Death

• Daniel Beratis, Grade 6
• Short Story
• 2007

The shadows weren’t flattering to the man, as he stood on the podium, ready to fight. He had risen from Darknesse 3 days before, and rallied an army to fight the sorry force that the enemy had garnered. He saw the warriors who thought that they could defeat him. He laughed on the inside of his shell, the shell of the creature he had taken a soul from. He was a tryken-suraten, a soul taker. He could reach into your body and steal the gem that represented the power to laugh, to cry, to feel and be. The tryken-suraten stood, poised to destroy his enemies, and become what no others had become: the tryka-sulber-neocry, the God of Souls.
The light brought forth hope for the man, and he stood on the podium, ready for a miracle. He hoped that the charges brought forth under his command had power, as they would need it to destroy the enemy. A messenger was exchanging messages to the tryken, and the long wait to doom was excruciating. Trembled wind had surfaced, and the enemy seemed to shine with a black radiance that could only be described as the shine of deathly necromancers. They were killers and assassins who delighted in murder with a smile. The messenger was retrieving his ground, and making his way back to the camp. The leader raised his sword. So did the enemy. The battle had begun.
The tryken-suraten withdrew its sword out of its unfortunate victim. The late soldier’s name was unknown, but he didn’t require a name. They would fall quickly if they were permitted to continue with this folly they described as war. The leader was the worrisome one, the only worrisome one. He would have to deal with him swiftly, and show how little hope they had.
Charges lit the sky, as the battle pulsed to the tune of swords clanging and corpses pounding the ground. The few left battling against the necromancers had filled their weapons with a fortifying ancient magic, such as to destroy the evil in the necromancer’s hearts. They rushed forth, and were met with more resistance than ever. The opposite side fought hard and fierce, but even they showed pain, cast upon them by the old power that charged through the weapons of the resistance and broke their pallor.
The sword withdrew from the final soldier but one, as the evil pushed ahead and surged toward that worrisome soldier that they had cast their eye on earlier. They advanced on him, and got no further.
He felt queasy. He scolded himself for the wondering of the mind, and tried to beat down the feeling in his stomach. Then, he felt like he was going to vomit, which he did. Or at least, he thought he did. The God of Souls burst through the shell of the warrior, and rose in the air. He disposed of the enemy quickly, and the tryken-suraten fell into the Darknesse, consumed by Darknesse, exhumed by Darknesse.