STRATEGICAL ADVANCES

Kimberlyn hurled forward at an impossible speed in the safe husk his wings provided. He could lose no time. At a certain time, when the living were dead, the ghosts would be no longer safe. Soon after the angels would fail. Kimberlyn prayed. He felt uncomfortable doing it since he had never been religious. But he knew when he was wrong.
Below him the landscape moved by in a colourful twirl. How long would it remain colourful? When would the blackness of the skies get to it? Here and there Kimberlyn could already see the grey patches of the ashes gathering.

The second to leave the book was Aray. The horseman of war screamed a vicious scream when she left her prison. She pulled her horse out by his leash and drew her sword. Only seconds later she was galloping down the streets of the earth. Everywhere around her she divided human bodies in two. The blood from the mortal wounds flowed on the streets, making it as red as the skies.
The streets behind her were covered in corpses when she finally stopped. Aray dismounted her horse and looked back. To her amusement some of the corpses were still alive. Mouths opened and closed, trying to find a clean breath of air while some hands clasped around others, trying to find help, but finding none.
As a last part of her morbid joke before she would start her real work, she lifted her sword to the skies.
"Inferis!" she called.
A thousand of big black spider-like insects crawled from the ground. Aray giggled, Satan would be mad that she had learned this spell from him, but it was so amusing she just couldn't leave it alone. She watched as the spiders made their way to the corpses and started eating them. Soon the streets were filled with screams and the soft ticking of metal legs on rock.
"Aray!" a voice beside her suddenly rumbled.
A bit disappointed that her fun should end so abruptly she turned around to face Satan.
"Yes mylord?"
"Get to your work and let me do mine!" Satan angrily said, almost biting of her nose.
Aray nodded and left. Behind his back her features shifted to angry. Who was he to tell her what she could and could not do? He had used all of her tricks to keep suffering in the world. Disgrunteled she waved her hands and watched as a huge army of skeleton warriors obeyed her command. Their armor was nearly completely rusted away and their spears and swords couldn't cut a slice of breath. But they were fierce. An eternal smile on their white faces.
Aray directed her horse in front of the waiting army. The army jumped up as they sensed their mistress nearing. Aray lifted her sword and saw millions of heads being trust upward. They still listened to her. Aray smirked. After all those years trapped inside the book she was even more powerful than before.
She took a deep breath, more out of habit than out of need and screamed: "Forward!"
The soldiers, as one, took a step forward and then another. Their metal gear clanging and clinging to make an atonal battlemarch. Aray led them deeper into the city. As if she and her horse were weightless Aray jumped/flew to the roof of the highest skyscraper. From there she looked down to see her army spread. Like a caner they infected the city, ripping open doors and dragging out scared humans.
For a few hours this was amusing enough, but soon the apathy and fear of the humans started to bore her. She knew she wasn't supposed to influence the humans, but she knew Satan had done it too. If he could do it, she could too.
Aray's eyes narrowed as she focused. A part of the scorched skies lifted and became clear. Mars, shining blood-red appeared right above her. Aray cut her hand and showed her hand to the red planet. The surface of the planet seemed to explode in colours as she drained it's power. When she was done, the red planet was only slightly yellow-orange, but Aray was glowing with a deep red light.
She opened her eyes and looked at the world with the deep red haze of war in front of her. Her hands went up, her sword temporarily forgotten on the ground. When she opened her mouth and screamed that one single word, she seemed to burst into flames. For one single moment she was visible around the entire globe and the one word was commanded into the heads and minds of every living thing.
"Fight!" she screamed in a thousand languages, some dead, some living, some forgotten and some inexistant. And they obeyed. Blood heated in the veins of humans and animals. Passion flamed in their hearts. Suddenly the streets below weren't a calm genocide anymore. They were a vibrant painting of carnage and massacre.
Aray watched as her skeleton soldiers hacked in on the flood of humans and animals rushing towards them like moths to a flame. At once Aray didn't want to remain high on the skyscraper where she could see everything. No she wanted to be in the battle, tasting the blood, feeling the pain. Aray mounted her horse again and urged it forward, vertically of the building. Physics has no room in a world run by religion, it is useless. After all, no-one questioned her about her behaviour to tell her it was impossible.
Aray smiled and dived into the raging battle, cutting of heads with her sword.

Kimberlyn arrived back at the place he had seen the book in. A mental asylum. The place was already infected worse than the surrounding areas, like a black, oozing boil waiting to spread over a healthy body. The once lush gardens were burned to a crisp, the small ponds had been reverted to mudpools. This all made Kimberlyn's nerves tingle. When he looked up to the asylum he was ready to run. The house was pitch-black and crooked. Misshaped by the evil it had kept so long inside. Behind his back the air suddenly flared up yellow-orange flames, but Kimberlyn was oblivious to the heat and the call of Aray.
Somewhat against his will Kimberlyn took the path to the asylum entrance. He knew he didn't have time to think things through, but he couldn't get himself to move any faster. He passed some trees and swallowed painfully when he saw the body of a nurse spiked on it. Her eyes were closed, but the lids were strangely turned in, as if the woman didn't have eyes anymore. Kimberlyn didn't have the guts to find out. He turned away and finally reached the asylum doors.