Splitting Howl set his wooden spear in anticipation for a rhino charge, and then tried to repress the snort he felt that was coming on. He looked at the others, to be heard out loud to say, "They can haul me in over my dead body...espically with something that looks like it was made out of two asses."

Job tried to jump out of the way of Bartleby, but his rhino caught his arm, tearing off the buckler and opening a deep gash. He rolled along the ground only to look up and see another rhino charging. Grabbing his sword's hilt, he succesfully rolled to the side and brought his sword along one of the rhino's legs. The beast roared in protest, trying to readjust itself but ended up spilling over. Its rider emerged from it holding a polearm, and after checking that his mount was going to live he stalked towards Job. In response, Job got up and readied himself, taking his mind off the throbbing pain in his bad arm.

As the rhino collapsed, the rider leapt off its back...and tripped over a certain undead badger. The rider cursed and stumbled, then yelled, "What the-? DAMN you, heretic!" as the irate badger dug its teeth into his leg. He dropped his sword, and Naerzul scooped it toward him, picking it up as the rider kicked at the badger's skull with his other leg.

"Well....good to see you've met the little anklebiter." the necromancer chuckled, even as he stabbed the sword through the soldier's chest. The rider gasped, blood bubbling in his mouth...stiffening in his death agony.

Naerzul concentrated, even as he withdrew the blade and stabbed it through the ennervated rhino's eye, gathering the energy of both deaths and pouring it into his undead pet. The badger realized the soldier's leg, trembling as black mana poured into it, and seemed to swell...a crackling sound coming from it as its bones grew.

The necromancer blinked, looking at his pet...which was now the height of a very large dog, and then threw back his head and laughed.

Firecall was ready for battle now, and he dodged one of Bartleby's short swords and faced a charging rhino and its rider. The rhino's rider, seeing no piercing weapon in sight, spurred his mount on to full speed, not seeing any danger in it, but Firecall, setting the macestaff into the ground for staying power, took his hands off the cloak with a small incantation, and the mace became a spear head. The rhino didn't have time to stop before it became a shishkabob of the fiery spear, and Firecall continued the attack, roaring with barbarian fury and lifting the enchanted macestaff with nearly unmatched strength pieced from life in the mountains. The macestaff quivered, and then, in the barbarian's hands, lifted, the dead rhino and its rider with it. With another roar, he proceeded to slam his new weapon into the side of another charging rhino..

Talniek, who had until now merely followed mutely, pulled a small clump of swamp dirt from one of his pouches. He whispers something, then tosses it in the air. Pointing his staff at one of the rhinos, black light arcs out to it, striking it in the horn. The rhinos legs lock even as it keeps running, pitching it forward and tossing its rider to the ground hard.

Howling Call grasped his staff tightly in one clawhand while holding a small bone bauble in the other. The trinket was tiny, but it was the essential to summon the spirit of the large creature from which the bone piece came. He howled and growled at once, creating and almost feline snarl, which allowed the mana to flow through more easily. He felt the energy of the plains around him; white mana was another essential element. Using his staff to fuel his mana further, he let out a full-fledged howl, and a great spirit nearly twice the size of a rhino came forth. The phantom Nishoba roared it's beastial cry as it came to face the rhino riders.

OOC: I'm gone until Friday now, somebody mind taking control of my good friend? HC will be too busy controlling it and such to do much else, and he'll be exhausted once it fades. And yes, there is such a creature as a Phantom Nishoba in MTG.

OOC: he's telling the truth...I've seen the card. Nonetheless, I contend that I should be allowed to summon/raise big creatures too. *pouts*

oh well, plenty of corpses to bring back!:D

IC: Naerzul knelt over the corpse of one of the rhinos, the one he had killed, and muttered a few words. The rhino twitched, then stood up, its movements jerky and slow as it ambled into battle.

Meanwhile, the badger seemed to have improved in more than just size and strength...it was faster, and fought with more than its usual animal cunning.

Talniek looks over his shoulder to where the death spark had just grown, then returns his attention to the soldier advancing on him. The soldier lunges his spear at him, only to hit air as he dodges nimbly to the side and reachs out, grabbing the soldiers arm. "Mul'thros, take this soul into your embrace, and bolster your desciple." The soldier begins shaking, as a white light surrounds him, slowly fading to black as his twitching slows.

Seeing the others occupied like such, Silvergem realised that she will have to enter the fray as well. Muttering a small, serpent oath, she slipped an amber gem off her braid, eyes crackling silver with renewed mana. The storer gem released its extra mana at her whispered command, rushing into her like a wildfire, restoring a fraction of her mana-pool in a mere blink.
She flicked out her dagger-wand, focusing her mana sharply with the air of her gems. She glided swiftly forward, her powerful snake body crossing the terrain with ease. A rhino-rider spotted her, and charged forward to engage her...
He never saw it coming. The spell of entrapment suddenly erupted from beneath the rhino's feet in the form of iron vines that lashed upwards and entangled the two in mid-stride.
"You will NOT take me again," Silvergem hissed as she moulded more mana into the tip of her dagger. Her left hand held the dagger, while her right hand slipped off two more beads. She rolled one onto the tip of her dagger. With one forceful motion, she flicked the bead forward with the tip of the dagger. She cried out a guttural serpent password, and the gem, which had landed in between the struggling beast's legs, suddenly glowed a brilliant violet, before exploding in something phenomenal.
The fireball's point-blank range eruption was so hot it literally melted the Rider and rhino before they could react, before combusting them simultaneously.

OOC: I must leave it at here. No time left... At school... and busy tonight.

One of the rhinos turned, confused at the sight of one of its own charging it. The zombie rhino buried its horn in its brother's side, and both went down, thrashing, the living rhino's rider getting crushed beneath his hefty mount.

Naerzul chuckled, manipulating the death energy, mixing it with his own virulent mana and producing a black beam of corruption that struck one of his living enemies in the arm. The rider, who had been about to slice at him with a glaive as he charged past, shrieked as his arm rotted to nothing...brittle, black-spotted bones collapsing into dust as the haft of the weapon rotted to powder, and the iron head of the weapon corroded as it fell at the necromancer's feet.

Still staring in shock at the stump of his arm, the rider was unable to control his rhino...and came a bit too close to Howling Call's summoned Nishoba. The spectral beast leapt out of the rhino's way, swiping across with one great, clawed paw in a powerful blow that nearly separated the rider's head from his shoulders...and was easily enough to snap his neck like a twig, killing him.