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C I N N E A D

A wraith. A gods-be-damned wraith! Goosebumps appeared across his body, and they were not from the cold. Cinnead had fought a wraith before, and it had nearly killed him. He had faced few foes of such caliber over the course of his lifetime. His hands slid across the rough wood of his spear, and a bitter pang of loss hit him. He dearly missed Brionac. Cinnead knew he would have to utilize all his skill and experience in this fight, especially without his favored spear. The Alans shifted uneasily at the unnatural laughter of the Wraith.

Suddenly, the laughing stopped. The Wraith moved, ludicrously fast, thrusting it's dreadful lance through two Alan warriors before they could even react. Their screams had barely erupted from their throats before another two Alans fell; one man fully cut in half, another missing his head. To their credit the Alans reacted swiftly, perhaps out of bravery or perhaps out of sheer instinct. Several Alans charged the Wraith even as arrows were launched from half a dozen short bows. But their efforts were in vain, for the Wraith was a being they could not hope to defeat. The Alans were cut down and the Wraith shrugged off the arrows as if they were mere annoyances. The Wraith slaughtered them contemptuously, killing with such ease and efficiency as to beggar belief. In moments, half the Alans lay dead.

Galeran screamed in incoherent rage. To him and the rest of the Alans, such a situation was incomprehensible. For a being so powerful to exist was so ridiculous it may have been comical had it had not been so terrifyingly real. The Wraith may as well have been a God for all the chance they stood against it. Perhaps this realization is what drove Galeran to charge the Wraith, screaming like some highland berserker out of legend. The Wraith, surprised, struck out with the butt of the lance instead of the head, and so Galeran sailed back across the field, wounded but very much still alive.

In the subsequent lull in the battle, Cinnead broke from the rest of the Alans. He shed his fur cloak and assumed his fighting stance, alone and starkly naked against the Wraith. A harsh wheezing filled the air, and belatedly did Cinnead realize the Wraith was laughing. He grit his teeth in anger, took one step forward and moved, covering the distance between him and the monster in an instant. He thrust a half-dozen times in the blink of an eye, the Wraith deflecting them all but the last which hit high on its shoulder, forcing it to leap backwards.

It was not laughing anymore.

The Wraith regarded Cinnead with unadulterated hatred, but with the wariness that results from acknowledging a worthy opponent. There was a deathly quiet for three heartbeats. The Alans stared in a mixture of disbelief and raw hope, while Cinnead and the Wraith glared at each other. And then the dance truly started.

They fought back and forth at dizzying speed. Blows were traded, strikes flowing into each other in savage artistry and breathtaking skill as the sounds of their duel rang throughout the hills. Fortunes changed seemingly with every parry and riposte, and it was clear to all that the two were well-matched. It did not remain so. Amazingly, Cinnead seemed to evolve before the Alans' very eyes, becoming that much faster, that much stronger, until what had once been a close contest of arms turned into a struggle for the Wraith to simply keep up. Cinnead soared, his feet seemed to hover above the ground, his movements were but a blur; he struck with an intensity and speed that was hardly comprehensible, let alone able to be matched. Gradually, the Wraith was pushed onto the defensive, it's stance systematically hammered and picked apart by the unrelenting force that was Cinnead's spear. 

Until, all too abruptly, it was over. 

The smallest of openings. Few men could have seen it, and fewer still could have acted upon it. But Cinnead had caused it to appear through a hundred blows engineered for that very purpose. He had forced the Wraith into an unbalanced stance on poor terrain, picked apart its defenses, and with a low feint, struck the deathblow through the Wraith's chest. And Cinnead felt, rather than saw, the black ichor that gushed over his arms. He twisted his spear and kicked off his dead foe, who dropped to the ground with a soft wheezing and a heavy thud. He turned and faced the Alans.

A long moment passed, and all was quiet but the winds blowing off the hills.

Until a quavering voice rang out. "Who are you?" said Galeran.

Cinnead looked at him for a long time. "I told you - I am Cinnead. Perhaps you know me best as the Spear of the West." He paused, his eyes hard yet exultant. "Now tell me, where is my spear?"
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