Pestilence: Rise Of The Pure Undead

The sky was so blue today, he had never paid much attention to the celestial canopy above his head, taking it for granted, the blue would never go anywhere, it would always remain and as such, there was no need to be pressed about appreciating its beauty.

What a fool he had been, only now that this bright blue sky was slowly turning dark and bleak was it realised that this sight was not eternal, only the empire of death was eternal, vision shook, all was blurry, sharp, constant noise ringing seemingly directly inside of the skull, echoing and reverberating.

His body suddenly rose from its spot, entire body slack, eyes ripped away from the sky and instead at the scene taking place on ground.

The soldier was reminded of where he was, a battlefield, the stone golems of the undead armies had begun advancing as soon as they had tried to attack the siege weapons, three lines of them, forming a continuous circle all around the capital, hopping forward, they thrusted their spears at the same time, advancing without stop, archers, crossbowmen and casters aimed for both the weapons threatening the pyramidal barrier, but they were too far to be effective, unseen mages dismantled the spells and intercepted physical projectiles with ease.

Only those that dared to venture out of the safety of the barrier could get in a position favourable for such an endeavour, the two elemental champions, Filiusorci, champion of earth, and Msir, champion of sword were the two that lead the regular soldiers outside, but both were unable of exerting their powers against the siege weapons.

The golems were easily swatted away by their spells, with the support from afar, they should have been capable of easily destroying at least a few of those destructive machines, slowly coming to reason, the soldier stood up on his own, breaking free of the pull of his comrade.

The two champions were being suppressed by a single undead that had joined the fray unexpectedly, it was not Loimos, the messenger was still standing a distance away, still wholly unmoving, as though everything was going exactly according to his plan.

He pulled his eyes away from him, prolonged observation was proving straining.

No, the undead that was forcing the two champions to pay complete attention to him, one hand remaining on his hips, swinging his blade almost nonchalantly, like swatting away flies, all that was needed to put two of Starkefolten's finest warriors on the defensive.

"Support the champions!" he cried out, everyone else was trying to stop the progress of the golems, but it was useless, their bodies were durable and it wasn't like they could step through the barrier anyways, the soldier, ignoring his bloodied up head, picked up a fallen spear, launching it at the skeletal undead, who obviously deflected it without even looking.

"Focus fire!" grabbing any sort of weapon lying down, he ignoring the bolts whistling past him and crashing against his meagre suit of armour, a stray arrow found its way into a gap of his chainmail, a damage on his protective equipment he wasn't even aware of, just enough for the tip of the arrowhead to start pushing against his skin through the gambeson.

The pain was many times greater than it should be, his muscles tensed instinctively for a brief instant, objects went right past him, his call was heard by a select few, who launched whatever they could get their hands on, forcing the undead to lay off the pressure.

As he turned his gaze toward the regular soldiers, they froze.

Unlike the royal courier, who remained perfectly unmoving and seemingly did pay attention to them, this skeleton was in a murderous mindset, directing his decrepit killing intent right at the rallied up soldiers, they all finally got to get a good look at him.

His attire was worn out and filthy with the blood of the past, dressed like a typical Tochian warrior from forgotten times, bits of petrified muscles still clung to his bony forearms, dirty, half-long dark hair still resting on his head, stuck to the dry scalp.

"Oh…" the soldier with the bleeding head, made the dire mistake of blinking, and now, somehow, his vision was higher and further than it used to be.

Blood spurted from a headless body in the distance, turning his neck did not work out, so he forced the eyes to look as far to the side as possible, failing to understand that his cleanly sliced head was resting on the side of the undead's katana, dozens of other soldiers that had stood in the way erupted with warm blood, armour, chainmail, gambeson, it was all air to the edge, bringing forth death in one strike.

The fresh death force produced from the reaped lives gathered around the swordsman's blade, swinging horizontally, a sharp, flying slash of death brought further misery to the mundane troops, the two champions avoided the attack, who quickly dissipated.

Msir had been slashed once after initially trying to contend with the corpse in swordplay, having had her heart and body cease for a moment, falling victim to the minor lord's own battle art.

The skeleton walked back toward the two champions, deflecting any projectiles that came his way, the two of them had had some time to attack the siege weapons, but turning their backs on this undead would have been a dire mistake.

"Retreat!" loud bells were rung on the side of the living, all soldiers did not hesitate to do as they were told, the two champions doing the same thing, under the fire of the undeads.

The first skirmish was a scanding loss for the living, unable of piercing the line and prevent the siege weapons from firing at the barrier, corpses of the felled soldiers were dragged to catapults and trebuchets, launched against the barrier or raised up on spikes.

The mages in charge of maintaining the barrier sweated and poured everything they had into solving even any minute problem instantly, the barrier shook, the crashing of heavy objects, the splatting of corpses, ripples of light green appeared around the targeted areas, the undeads were not focusing fire at all, doing something that could only be purposeful.

Fioldron Ferrcrona rubbed the bridge of his nose, this had only lured out a single of those special undeads, and not even the main man himself, he felt reluctant to send too many of his troops at once, in case any of them had attacks capable of destroying a large area, losing even a single of his champions, even the recent addition.

Tomorrow morning, another battle would occur, and this time, they better manage to stop some of those weapons from firing.

New golems were brought out from behind cover to replace the ones that had fallen, the battlefield was cleared clean, everything decaying away under the will of Loimos.

As was to be expected, the royal courier was not planning on a swift victory, why would he be? The undeads needed no ressources, and he wasn't even sending undead soldiers, naught but regular golems created en masse in the forges of the undead palace.

Loimos was going to lengthen this confrontation for as long as was necessary.

"General Loimos" the Tochian undead appeared by his side, his chipped, pale blade sheathed in a rusted scabbard.

"Ourlon, what do you think of the elemental champions you faced?"

"Junk, jacks of two trades, who excel in neither aspects, much potential for something greater however, and their fighting style was lacking, they must all be meant to fight as a complete team rather than as duos" he answered.

"Good work, stay on the ready for possible reinforcements, you and Yuolrt are in charge of troops in case a battle is occurring on this front as well" Loimos spoke, never turning away from his position.

Waiting until the livings moved again.