Deathless Reign: Ch. 14

(*-*-*Author's Note: I'm Finally back! been working on some other projects to rest my eyes a bit from Deathless Reign. Hopefully I could maintain and keep releasing new chapters on a regular basis. Anyway, thanks again for taking the time. Constructive feedback is most welcome. *-*-*)

There was no grand ceremony when Reign left for his task. It was the dead of night amongst the early hours, long before the shine of day could break the cover of dark. A handful few villagers were up and about manning the walls atop makeshift scaffolds they scrounged up together from old houses. They did not wield torches for light though, Blanche feared the presence of the strangers from the north would draw attention from afar.

Reign did one last round of his creation, hand trailing alongside the packed dirt and stone as he tested each and every section of the wall by ramming his shoulder into it. The wall reverberated with each shove of his shoulder, a subdued thundering that sent small flecks of dust tumbling down. It was a collision that could crack a boulder in its force alone and seeing his work withstand it put him well at ease at the village's security in his absence.

It was utterly a marvel to have finished in barely a week's time, doing the work of almost fifty men and a month's worth of their efforts. It wouldn't have been possible without the whisperings of the Earth itself, advising Reign, on how to strengthen the wall as strong as it can be in such little time. How to set up its underpinnings and imbuing it with a mere hint of 'power' to reinforce its foundation, to be able to withstand a surprising amount of force should any try to break it down. The Earthmother yielded a few of her secrets, whatever that wasn't corrupted by the defilement of the Undead Blight on the land.

Reign wondered what other abilities laid hidden within him but he was cautious to delve deeper. It was like opening a doorway, one that would just as give him access to greater knowledge as well as losing control over himself to his darker half once more. Whispers was both key and door, through it, Reign could tap into a greater power that underlies within him. But he could just feel Whispers inside of him, waiting and bidding it's time to strike. Such was the risk in exploring those abilities. They came at a cost and he had always been a shrewd buyer as the echoes of his mother's voice reminded him, faint voice flitting through his memories.

Blanche had ordered the construction of the ramparts along the walls, to set up watches in groups of two and run intervals rounds to patrol the expanse of the village wall. It was a blessed late night that the moon's brittle light fell through breaks in the clouds above, making for no need for torches.

They all stood and watched as Reign descended down the path towards the northward gate at the back of the village wall. Blanche, Ayleth and a handful others standing guard with rusted pitchforks and improvised wooden clubs. A crude slab of wood was all that stood as a gate as gate-making was beyond Reign's expertise. Perhaps the call of the Earthmother could give him insight into creating steadfast gates but he felt he needed to delve deeper into the power to do. Suffice to say he put it on hold for the time being.

Undead though he was, the villagers all recognized Reign's feats as necessary for the village's survival and were more than willing to overlook that the powers he held was also the very same that that of the ruinous forces that terrorized the land. To see him leave the village made their insides gnawed by fear, as they had enjoyed momentous peaceful sleep for having a guardian such as him.

For Ayleth and Blanche, it was much more......complicated to say the least.

Still, there was some degree of care in the two women's eyes or as much care can be warranted when your mutual survival depends on another. Reign was ready to depart, standing at the maw of the very earthen wall he had toiled nonstop for the past week or so, imbued with power not of this holy earth.

They had nothing to give that would be of any use to a dead man. What use did Reign had for food supplies and provisions? No need of weapons when one could brush off any attack and if one where to go through, would it have any effect to a heart that had long stopped beating? They had but only given a slightly motheaten cloak to replace Reign's tattered peasant tunic, the very same he had died in.

"I'll be back and see what it is they want," were all the simple words he uttered as he strode from the shadows of the wall and out towards the first step northward.

"Are you, by any chance, nervous?" Blanche asked by his side, she was only one of two people who ventured outside of the walls to bid their guardian farewell and good tidings on his mission. The other being the young, blonde acolyte.

"And be wary, Reign. The farther north you go, the closer you are to the disruption," the acolyte suddenly chirped in.

"Disruption?" Reign asked, mostly interested and slightly bit alarmed.

The acolyte's blond locks bobbed as she nodded.

"Whatever meditation I try, whatever call I request to the Goddess for guidance, they would not reach towards the heavens. Instead, they would be.... siphoned, towards the north," she explained. "Someone or something is guiding amongst the shadow, that is the only explanation I arrived to. The effects are too deliberate for it to be natural."

"So, just...curious here," this time, Blanche piped in with a raise of her hand, "how do you know your 'prayers' don't reach their....... desired destination?" she waved about the air, trying to find the right words.

Ayleth sighed, "Well, as it stands that.... the trials of these past few days have found me...worthy in the Goddess eyes. I could feel it. A connection. Whenever I ask for plea, I feel a tangible part of my very essence escape my lips and ideally toward the Goddess' grace."

"Of course, of course," Blanche affirmed but Reign could not help but detect a hint of sarcasm in her tone.

"Anyway," Blanche turned to Reign and addressed him, "the reason I'm asking, Reign, is to see if you are in any need of some.... assistance?" she said with a glimmer of mischief in her eye. "You know......to relieve stress and such, you are after all embarking on a dangerous mission for days on end. Who knows when will you be back?"

For a moment, Reign was taken aback at her boldness. Especially with Ayleth so close by and so many others watching them from the walls, "I'm fine Blanche, really. But......thank you nevertheless."

"Well, just trying to help, it'll be just a quick - -" she made a motion with her hand as if holding some imaginary object with her fingers clasped, and a jerking motion back and forth, "and then you're all set and go."

Reign couldn't help but smile, being that the only apt thing he could think of at the village leader's raunchy humor, "Well, I don't have to worry about morale with your chipper attitude."

"What kind of assistance are you talking about?" Ayleth asked, genuinely perplexed and oblivious at Blanche's innuendo.

"Hmph? Oh right! Remind me to have a......talk with you later."

"About what?"

"Uhm.... We'll-we'll talk later. About some matters that I think is long overdue."

To Ayleth, she still didn't know what to feel about that fateful night. The savage, carnal lust that enveloped her was an experience quite unlike she had ever felt before. It left a lasting impression of shame on most waking days for succumbing to the throes of red vicious passion. But on some nights, on some instances, the intense fervor of her sopping pudenda would wake her and she was left with a burning, animalistic desire to delve her fingers into her gushing organs.

It was door she had never though existed inside of her and it had been broken down, with no possible way of ever closing in the near future. Thoughts and ideas pop to her head at the dead of night, whispering fancies of baseness that left her lost in thought. Times where she would just space out, trying to remember that feeling, hot blood rushing with the force of a stampede in her veins. Her groin a searing wildfire. It was better not to say despite how pathetic it was. It was better than to say anything at all.

Blanche had meant what she said.

Having just started to be endeared to this poor, young man. But life had taught her to be reticent, better this than go through another period of pain of losing cherished friends.

"Very well then, I'll see you in a few days' time," the undead simply said and made way towards north.

"Take care," they felt they should say something more than that, just about anything. But whatever words they were, they'd die halfway across their throat. They shared some warmth with him, both women, but none dare speak about it. Not with others nearby and not knowing the right words to say at the mess of emotions they felt.

Only the trudging of his soles against the gravel was his company as the dozen pairs of eyes watched him head north in what could only had been a lonesome quest. The night, tranquil in its slumber, as the majority of the people did sleep amongst warm embrace within the village. Ayleth and Blanche foregoing the cold to bid him farewell and good haste to the unknown forces up north.

But in all the time and travails that occurred in betwixt these three, it was hard to come up the right words to say to one another. These thoughts weighed heavy on Reign's mind and as his journey pressed ever onwards, so too did his thoughts grew muddled by the doubts he himself conjured out of nothing.

As a way to blow away his frustrations, he drew a bit of the power inside of him, just a mere trickle he let flow towards his thighs and his calves, bolstering them in renewed vigor. Like a hare bolting, the dirt beneath was kicked up in an explosive surge of energy as he leapt through the underwood in a blur.

He went on for some time, bounding speedily like a woodland critter and thought to himself how nice it would have been to relish the wind against his cheeks. It was calming, in a sense, as no foul creature assailed him in his steadfast flight underneath the twisted, leafless branches of a dying woods.

As he fleeted past, Reign took notice that there wasn't that much different amongst landscape of the north of the forest, save for the slight change on the contours of the land. Being more and more rugged with each bound of his empowered limbs. Footing here required thought as the uneven terrain made him slow down to a simple trot once more. A living, breathing human would have taken the better part of half a day to sojourn this terrain, now having taken an uphill feature to any that departed from the south. Complemented by the dark, gnarled roots that could easily trip ankles and sprain any unsuspecting traveler.

Reign made good headway, having taken him just a simple hour. Not spent on breath, he continued ever onwards, the light slowly seeping back into the world as the hour of the morning sun was ever drawing nearer. Blanche had said that he need only follow the pillars of smoke, barring that just make a simple straight line north. He had been walking for some time and finally settled on letting the morning direct his path, revealing the pillars of smoke to better ascertain his heading rather than doubling back just in case.

As he did so, the mere silence of the woods was deafeningly prevalent. Not a cricket's orchestra nor a nocturnal rodent's skittering on the forest detritus. Only him and him alone.

No, on second thought, that wasn't true. He was never truly alone. And just on cue, he could feel Whispers stirring at the back of his mind, like the movements of a serpent within your own home. It may not be seen but you could hear its slithering, how its scales would brush up against floorboards or corner of the wall it had taken refuge to. Biding its time till it's all big and grown, ready to strike.

As it was in life as it is now, Reign had a way in dealing with weighty matters is that to pretend that everything would work out your way. Which is contradictory for what the other part of his mind followed through. Eyeing every tree and every shadow, suspecting to harbor some untold horror.

True to Ayleth's words, the farther north he travelled, the more prevalent the corruption revealed itself. There was what he could only put in words...... a heaviness, in the air, that it made it difficult to breathe. Which was something, considering Reign has no need for air. The light too was affected, just seemed skewed in a sense as the trees appeared far more gnarled and malicious with each step he took northward.

The shadows didn't help, having a mind of their own and looking to devour any light that comes their way.

But why should he fear these things? He was not without power himself.

Reign flared his own store of deathlight, letting it surge his veins, bones and flesh. If he should so wish, he could command the very earth itself. And true enough, the malicious tricks the corrupted land tried to pull were dispelled in the presence of Reign and he continued north onward unimpeded.

He chalked this malevolent nature to the corruption caused with the Undead Blight.

Nothing more.

Or so he thought.

He hadn't made ten strides when he felt the heavy gaze of a presence so devastatingly powerful, he buckled under the pressure of their scrutiny, like the eyes of God themselves boring down on him.

Joints frozen stiff. Unable to think. Shadows pressing in.

One moment he was empowered, the next he could hardly take a step forward as every join and limb on his body wouldn't move an inch. A thousand whispers closed in around him, filling his head and making his own body move on its own by an outside force that felt like a giant needle and thread, sewing through his appendages and thoughts and turning him into some......some sort of puppet.

He had the mind to suddenly pull, to resist this unseen puppetmaster and let him taste a bite of his fury, if not for the intervention of Whispers itself.

Quiet fool! This is a fight you can't even hope to win!

"WHAT.ARE. YOU- -"

It's the bigger fish, fool! There's always a bigger fish! Now play dead or we would be torn asunder a second time! Dispel your power, HURRY!

It was the Deathlight, it was like a beacon and whoever set the strings was homing in on it, Reign could feel it. And they were coming in fast. Whispers came to the same instinctual conclusion, that whoever was coming towards them, they were far, far stronger if they could immobilize Reign from afar.

He released his store of power, just the ones coursing through his veins, and was instantly rewarded by the sudden release of the strings that bound him. He tightly concealed the lid on his internal power, a mental act and settled in between a crag amongst a small outcropping of rocks not far off.

No wind blew on this part of woods and yet the groaning of a hundred trees filled the forest. Something was moving, looking for Reign where he had been. He didn't hide that far from where he had been restrained. But something told him, they won't find him. With the sudden expulsion of power, his left arm had all but reverted to being a skeleton once more and he could only guess the same to a portion of his cheek. Which worked in his favor, whatever was searching for him was searching for any traces of Deathlight.

It seemed that the entire forest parted and the very trees themselves were shaken from their roots at the being that came. Whatever it was, Reign had no intent of peeking from where he hid. All he could tell was a living shadow that blotted any light that dared touch it.

Daylight soon broke and the great presence lingered for a brief moment before moving on. Whatever it had been, it didn't like sunlight, no matter how feeble it may be.

Now almost powerless, he must be careful to draw upon his store of power. Who knows how many of them they are. In his depowered state, Reign eyesight gave him a perspective.

It seems he had taken refuge near a ridge and just beyond so, the pillars of smoke rising prominently. If he could get over the top, he may have a bird's eye view of the lay of the land. He ducked low out of instinct, cautious of garnering the attention of the being that sought him out. The largening pillars of smoke all but points to a single answer as to where it all lead. Reign prepared himself as to what he might see and still the great sight of what beholden him toppled the walls of his expectations never the less.

Reign found his gaze transfixed to the hypnotic, dizzying myriad of people milling about in their multitude so packed together they might have been mistaken as ants atop the ridge he laid.

When he had been alive, their village had been but a few dozen souls or so. being a peasant all his living days, he had never taken a mile away from home and all had stories from faraway places form wayward travelers or lost merchant who had just taken a wrong turn, among the many twists and crosses of the Forest.

Reign was nearly overwhelmed form the massive number of it as people milled about like ants and was pressed together inside the camp that there were places where one could not help but bump shoulder with someone every three steps or so. The earth was trodden by so many passing feet it was constantly churned to mud and the surrounding trees outside of camp were reduced to a sea of stumps to feed the near countless bonfires around the camp necessary to ward of winter's cold grip.

Reign watched in rigid fascination of the mass of bodies, not feeling all to keen in joining them then and there for it looked too uncomfortable for his liking to bump elbows with that many people. He had heard tales of cities in faraway places with so many people it was said to be choking. He never thought of it possible then and only when his eyes laid on the sight elbow did, he finally got a vivid image of what the stories meant.

Whatever the case may be, it seems the people here were but stranded by the onset of winter, having made an ersatz barricade that was, at the very least, merely impede any that dared breach the perimeter of their camp rather than completely deter assailants. It made his handiwork of the village wall to be a work of masterpiece compared to the ramshackle collection of wood, dirt and stakes below.

Their wall was uneven, hastily dug ditches and whatever spare wood they could get their hands on at the time of its hasty construction, most of which was from old crates, discarded wagon parts and a surplus of furniture jutting out of the woodwork. The lowest height of which could just barely reach a grown man's head. While the tallest portion was as tall as two men standing atop the former's shoulder. Even now, there were forms bent over and digging deeper, strewn about the camp's environs along with figures making regular runs to the nearby woods for firewood. Reign was absolutely certain that amongst their numbers too were many women as much as men.

But most that garnered his attention, atop his spot, was the gleaming figures clad in steel that strode about the camp in small clusters. Wherever they went, the sea of people would part their way for them, a sense of awe and respect emanating where they walked. Reign leaned forward and squinted, having a rising intuition as to who these individuals were the more he observed.

And finally, he figured them from his perch atop the ridgeline.

He'd have gulped his own spit if his mouth worked like that of any living man, as he was greatly reminded of a long held dream every child of the age of ten held, from boys and girls alike.

Knights.

Possessing of an air that bespoke of veteran warriors, the stories could not hold a candle to the actual thing, these beings from his childhood stories finally made of living flesh and steel rather than tales and make-believe. Something pitter-pattered in his unbeating heart, like some long-held desire wanting to burn but could not find the friction to spark. The sight of the knights only reminded him of a dream long lost after years of suffering in his undead affliction.