Deathless Reign: Ch. 14

It was a saddening thought.

A faint flurry had started to fall, nothing strong yet but it carried with it the grandsire of the northern winds. Men went out in droves, swathed in heavy wools and fabrics from head to toe to fight of the freezing cold, accompanied by large groups of armed men as they hacked the nearest trees to feed off the ever-raging fires of the camp. A large swathe of what had once been the forest floor, now populated by stumps in their evident wake.

All about, a vigilant watch was held atop the highest section of the barricades, surveying all and far wide. Reign had to take great care not to be seen as a suspicious cloaked figure from where they stood their vigil. He did not have to be up close so see the fear and agitation amongst the camp-dwellers' slumped shoulders and nervous tics, for so great were the number of living souls cramped in such a space that their emotions clumped together and stifled the very air above their camp, like a dreary low-hanging cloud that would not dispel.

A scream broke him out his observations.

Shrill and loud it was, making it easy picking from its source from amongst the woodsmen who worked to the northeast of the camp, as they began to ran back in panic towards the camp barricades. It took him a moment of wonder to realize it had belonged to a woman who worked with them. It seemed that not all woodsmen were men at all.

The reason for the scream need not be mystery for Reign, for out of the treeline a perilous totality of the dead had hobbled forth, in numbers too great and horrid that the best discourse was to find something hard and strong in between the decaying, grasping limbs eager to consume living flesh.

And not just north of the camp, as another horde hobbled out beneath the canopies from the southwest, with just as many of the poor decaying things shambling towards the camp.

And Reign felt it once again, faint whisperings not of his own, like strings pulling and pushing the horde of dead ever so deftly towards the camp. Someone, somewhere, was giving out orders not strong to warrant the attention of any versed in the Deadlight but smooth and gentle.

The two opposite hordes were in formation two, forming two diamond prongs from the north and south, both coalescing headstrong towards the camp.

Inside the camp, the people were organized, as if they had done this for a dozen times and more as they got far away from the barricades and gave way to groups ready to defend their assigned section of the walls with experienced haste. There was no panic where people would fell on top of one another or pushed others to make way for themselves, as it seemed that there were already predetermined spots where everyone should be should an attack occur, and Reign finally noticed that even inside the camps there were sections upon sections where the residents have made their own defenses in the grim event that the dead should breach the outer barricades.

Before the vanguard of the shambling horde could even reach the farthest stake, the defenders were already on their posts, waiting in such preparedness and anticipation that Reign could not but feel amazed at their discipline.

And then there was the briefest of lull, the precipice of when all hell break loose, Reign felt it and the defenders felt it too.

As finally, the brunt of the hundred strong undead shambled their way into the ditch that would see a grown man buried up to his head and be mired with waist high mud and submerged stakes. The dead, unheeding of any sense or pain, all but slobbered through the muck as the defenders finally let loose their arsenals. Blistering hot vats of dark bubbling tar poured down from the ramparts by the defenders, before being lit afire by thrown torches. The vanguard of the dead burst in flames so hot, Reign thought for an instant he felt the heat from this far off and despite the unfeeling nature of his undeath, as the ditch became a hellscape of burning dead bodies and pitch-black suffocating smoke.

As if it wasn't enough, men in greatshields strode out of some hidden passages amongst the barricade and sallied out in efficient formation to corral the shuffling horde from the flanks and into the burning inferno of the moat. Accompanying them were the great warriors clad in battered and silvered steel, brandishing their greatswords as if it was an extension of themselves. Eyes wide and unblinking, Reign watched with great alacrity to see the heroes of his then living youth vanquish their foe and found the tales do them no justice. With a single swing, a knight easily decapitated four undead with ease and another steel-clad warrior flaunting a mace with burning embers, enclosed the opposite flank with bursts of fire and steel.

They whittled down the horde ever so steadily and it was clear who the victor was going to be. It had been easy.

Too easy.

Like the strike of lightning, swift and barely perceptible till it was too late, another the string was pulled.

Reign turned to the tree lines, as figures burst with such manic speed filled with mad haste. Filled with a glow and dread, their malicious consciousness reached him as to where he played spectator atop the ridge. They were of the Undead, of that he was certain. They bypassed the battle on the north and south, making a bee line on the least defended portions of the barricade, where the ditch was most shallow and the walls still in repair.

A chill had run down Reign's spine at the sight of the sudden counter-attack, if it were possible.

As simple as a peasant could come to the same conclusion that this was a coordinated attack. He had assumed that the shambling dead were all but good for was to overwhelm anyone with their great numbers. And those mad things with swords for hands, he had never seen but had heard their kind in stories from his childhood. Of the fallen on the battlefield of ages past, those that succumbed to the maddening bloodlust and wandered the long-forgotten battlefields as phantoms of their former selves, unable to move on for their hunger for battle and trapped in their twisted corpses.

The Draugrs.

Hacking and clambering, their numbers were few but the defenders that remained atop the barricade all but cowered at the sight of these late arrivals. And with good reason, as one of the defenders tried to lop the head of the first one that reached the height of the barricade, only to find the thing contorting out of the way with bone-breaking litheness, a mockery of the rotting joints and ligaments that was nigh impossible on a living man.

The best the defenders could do was keep them at bay, although not without sustaining causalities themselves. One man was dragged and thrown over the ramparts, landing atop the stakes. Half a dozen others were brought down by the bladed limbs, grafted onto the rotting flesh and bones itself of the Draugrs.

They had been caught off guard and while most of their forces engaged the greater force, it seemed these Draugrs would ultimately make their way into the camp where those unable to fight had taken refuge. It would be a slaughter.

Reign almost found himself taking a step forward.

Strangers such as they were, it would be sight too harrowing to let a massacre erupt if he had the power to stop it.

A sudden realization that any use of his powers might alert this unseen puppetmaster, for the first time ever, Reign and Whispers agreed on one thing, and that was to proceed with caution. For a bigger predator than they were lurked amongst the shadow's unseen. Any wrong move would find their jaws clasping on Reign's throat. That was how worried he was of this cunning foe.

A half-formed plan had taken shape in his mind, to leap over the barricade and stop the massacre from ensuing before it was all evaporated.

A caped figure, almost hallway across the distance of the barricade's span, sprinted towards the assailed rampart with such speed that bordered on the extraordinary. The force they carried as they drew their sword and swung in a single breath left one Draugr split into two, never once halting in their rush. A rush of steel and destruction greeted the remaining Draugrs, completely overwhelmed by this one singular force of nature.

And overhead swing eviscerated two successive Draugrs while the last had the instinct to raise its deformed sword limb, a rather pathetic attempt, as it was no match to the glistening silver steel of the knight it faced.

And with the defeat of the Draugrs, did the eventual destruction of the shambling Horde also came to pass, evidenced by the cheer of the men and women all across the camp. Save for a few exceptions, notably that of that monstrous Knight that scoured the Draugrs from the ramparts. Making a survey of the battlefield, the respect he garnered and received from the other Knights spoke that this might be a leader of theirs.

Reign retreated away from the ridge as carefully as he can to avoid detection below, pondering what his next course of action would be.

From the looks of them, it is clear that they are refuges from the Northern Domain and its frontier towns. The situation had reached a breaking point that they have no choice but to flee for their lives and down further south. But these were all but speculation on Reign's part. Too many of their number were simple folk, folk who didn't know to swing a sword at a dummy, much less at an enemy. But they are a desperate and frightened people, people who would do things for the sake of safety and survival.

Far greater forces were truly at work here, Reign concluded. The puppetmaster, the Knights and the refugees. It was good thing Blanche herself did not come to investigate, these near endless questions and troubles would turn her hair white. The greater forces Whispers had told Reign was beginning to show their hands, and Reign feels like but a piece in a boardgame so large he could not see the edges.

And with that brings Reign to his next course of action: to go down there and gather information.

Reign had come to a conclusion, that in order for him to find out about their intentions, he had to go amongst them. He wondered whether they would be as welcoming as the villagers, and only hoped so, for fear and desperation could bring out the animal within every man, woman and child.

Of all souls, this he knew the most.