Deathless Reign: Ch. 15

"By the Gods! Its- its......." some stepped back, others face paled. Lady Sybilla's time slowed to a halt. Eyes wide and heart rushing, breathed deep from her lungs, thoughts turning to words. Words coalesced to form a warning, the very first syllable of which has yet to escape her lips.

But it was too late.

Izora had venture too far out. Too close to the mist. Too close to the shadow veiled within.

"By the gods, Sergeant, we thought we had lost-"

Izora stumbled as the Sergeant lunged on top of her. Only it wasn't the Sergeant. Half its face had caved in and showcasing the still pulsing viscera within. The undead Dredge sought the meaty flesh of her jugular, clacking, yellowing teeth met empty air a hairsbreadth away from her throat. The ripe pungent odor of rotting flesh made her teary eyed as the reanimated corpse thrashed atop of her. She was going to die. She was told never to let a dredge get too close. Never let one topple her to the ground.

She was going to ripped to shreds, piece by piece. A horrendous end.

The will to live jolted inside of her.

Savage, primal instinct. Animal and furious, Izora pushed with all her might, with all her limbs. Arms shoving, legs buckling. Her knees dug into the dredge's torso and she kicked with all the fury she had to live.

It toppled away from her and Izora scrambled to her feet, kicking up the mud in the wake of her escape. Heart pounding. Mud encrusted. Out of the mists, rotten limbs, decaying flesh and hungry maws groaned in frightening familiarity as dozens of undead came ambling their way towards the caravan.

A hundred grasping skeletal hands reaching out to savor the vital, warm flesh of the living.

Only to meet cold steel.

For the forces of House Silverwell was no easy prey. Concealed by fog and in unknown numbers, a wall of sharpened steel and hardened will encircled the caravan, decimating the ranks of the dead, no matter the odds.

Izora couldn't have strayed more than a few yards between her and safety and yet the swarm of dead that burst out of the mists made it seem a mile away. She shoved. She kicked. And she snarled her way through. Twice she almost fell to the grasping hands and twice she escaped the brush of death.

Heart beating with the force of a stampede in her chest, Lady Sybilla caught her daughter in an embrace as she thwarted one recently reanimated corpse with a swing of her fighting pick, puncturing the creature right in the temple as it toppled still back to the mud. Not much time for affection, Izora scrambled back to the wagon, scrambling for her bundle of silks.

Where was it? where was it?

All around her, the living held their ranks and held them well. A few of which hacked and hacked at the entangling that caused them to halt their caravan's advance: a macabre collection of undead limbs, moving and grasping, even without the connection to a head. The limbs were sewn together with black thread, a farcical imitation of a tree root in design, with the sole purpose of ensnaring any hapless mortal that so much as come close to them.

She had last put it atop her seat. Perchance it fell when the ambush started? She looked underneath the wagon. By the wheel and beneath the wagon bed, she caught sight of the brightly colored fabrics mired with sludge and she dove straight for them.

She hurriedly unfurled the material, unknowing of the half torso of reanimated corpse crawling towards her.

Izora watched as the world was lurched beneath her, knocking the air away from her lungs. Not a moment of reprieve as something dragged her away from the wagon. Her mother screamed after her before being cut off by a lunging undead. She scrambled against the mud, nails digging into the muck. She clawed. Fumbling after her bundle of silks. The creature lurched, promising death. Black maw gaping, yellowing teeth closing in.

Its head burst like a grape.

She unfurled the silks and placed another bolt in her crossbow, shoulders groaned in familiar protest and strain as she drew back on the lever. She needs to get up. She scrambled and nearly slipped.

A sudden groaning alerted her to her flanks and she butted the dredge with the crossbow's stock before letting lose another bolt that burst an undead's rotting skull into a dozen pieces.

There was no end to them.

Izora let loose another bolt, the force exploding the rotting head of one dredge and going through another. Fighting was heard all around. Everyone formed lines as polearms kept the worst of the lot at bay while those with axes and swords hacked at any that stumbled too close for the polearms to do their work.

They were pouring out of the mists like sand! There was no end to them. And her mother knew that they couldn't keep this up for long.

It was frantic.

It was desperate.

If Izora wasn't so driven and have no thought for anything else, he would have cried, she even felt crying just now, as she kicked another dead away with her boot. As Izora had long since learned now, what stories don't tell you about battles was the exhaustion. One might think that they are long and protracted engagements. The stories never tell how as little as a few minutes could seem like an eternity, with no end in sight. Your heart racing. Muscles straining. With each swing of your weapon, you expedite you own energy, inching closer to either your or your opponent's demise.

Little by little, the line buckled.

An inch here and an inch there.

Until finally, something had to give.

The guardsman beside Izora couldn't keep it up anymore. His spirit was strong but the flesh was fatigued. Bolstered by new numbers, the undead at the back pushed and like a dam breaking, they leaked through Izora's flanks.

The young lady could no longer use her crossbow in such range and had to op to use it to push back the tide of the dead. With gritted teeth, her and the men tried to stem the horde. Doubt seeped into their mind, as did Izora's. Wouldn't it better if she would just give up? To lay down?

Through gritted teeth and strained sweat, she prayed to whatever deity that listened for a miracle. But the past few weeks had taught her it was a futile attempt. She never expected any real answer. Their situation was beyond dire.

Perhaps that is why they are called miracles. Something that shouldn't have happened, happens.

The force of the dead waned. They thought it a trick of their mind but as five seconds passed, it weakened further. Another ten and the line was once more restored. At the rear ranks of the undead, rotting silhouette of the dead were brought down one by one. The blunt shadow of a mace apparent through the haze. Out of the fog, burst none other than the Sergeant, bruised and bloodied, armor torn in places but very much alive. With the expertise of decades with his mace, five undead skulls were caved in just as many heartbeats.

"Milady!" He screamed over the din of battle.

"Sergeant, you're alive! Praise the Gods!"

"We can praise the Gods after we get out of here! Follow me, there is a path to safety!"

"We can't! The dead are too many and the animals - -" Like the thunderous fury of a lightning strike, dredges flew in the air. Izora's jaw hung slack as one flew so high, it went over the wagons, disappearing off to the other side of the mist, lost from sight.

"What? who -"

"A friend, my lady. Now hurry, more are coming by the second! Someone give me a torch and follow the light!"

Lady Sybilla nodded, and boomed over the clamor of the fighting, "You heard the Sergeant! Follow his fire! Go!"

Acting as a beacon, the Sergeant waved his fire for all to see, to rally upon. He darted off to the side and into the mists but his light held true. The animals buckled in their harness, kicking and rearing amidst the chaos. Izora wondered how were they going to commandeer the wagons away from the fighting?

The answer came in a storm of falling undead viscera. Out of the mists, a cloaked figure strode towards the horde of undead. In his grasp, twice as long as two grown men and just as thick as their torso, was a broken-off oak branch. The cloaked stranger swung it around with apparent ease that to those that could spare a glance could not help but slack their jaws in utter disbelief as they saw the man hurtle several undead like flies.

The guards broke off and forced the animals to push. The man waded through the undead ranks like a farmer with a scythe and cut down their assault. It took multiple people to get the beasts moving but it was down.

They knew where to go but the path was muddy and littered with small pools of bogged up water. Most of the wagons sped through the obstacle, the people trailing behind. But some lurched and to their horror, could not gain purchase in amidst the muck.

"The food! Get down and push! Push or we all die!" yelled one voice.

The cloaked stranger heard the distress, discarded the branch by hurtling it away to a throng that was about to flank them. Bodies were squashed and the rest toppled into one another as the piece of wood impacted into them, buying them precious time.

Then, the stranger abounded to the nearest bogged wagon and displayed another feat of great strength that was worthy of legends, by singlehandedly pushing it out of the mire. Izora watched the living spectacle unfold before her very eyes with stunned amazement before her mother had to shake her shoulders and keep on towards the Sergeant's light.

As they cleared off the muddy waters, they found themselves on a sloping path directly leading towards the forest. It was no proper path fit for wagons but a mere clearing wide enough between the treetrunks for the coaches to speed through.

With a glance over her shoulder, Izora witnessed the stranger left behind, staving off the bulk of the dead by himself with his bare hands. It was a sight fit for songs and stories, not reality. And yet there it was unfolding. Her mother veered ol' Bessie around a cope of trees and the stranger was forever gone from her sight. no time for grief, Izora promised to immortalize the man's deeds in song and story should they ever get out of this accursed forest.

The Sergeant's torch was not far off and all the wagons homed in on the orange flames, navigating their own beeline towards it. Strewn along the path was the still forms of the rotting dead, truly dead and no longer a threat to anyone. There should have been more than a hundred.

As they pressed further, the mist's grip dwindled. They must've raced for more than a league away at from where the ambush took place. The undead still roam but only in sparse numbers that the men made quick work of them. Southwest, they headed by Izora's reckoning until finally the Sergeant stopped at a small open area littered with wood stumps and small hills. The mist was fortunately frail in these parts and no strong sign of the undead were present enough to pose threat.

For now.

All the wagons were accounted for and fortunately, none had perished. However, a dozen lay too injured to stand, having sustained broken bones and bitemarks that if left untended would surely be fatal. If they had stayed there further with no recourse, they'd have sustained more than just injuries.

"Milady," said the sergeant.

"Sergeant, we feared you lost," worried Lady Sybilla.

"So did I, Milady. So did I," The Sergeant looked as if he had been tied behind a steed and dragged on the dirt for several miles out, "I was waylaid in the mists, the rotting bastards damn near tore my arm from my socket before I managed to make a run for it. After that it was a series of running and swinging in the mists. Out of sheer luck, I found myself out of the damnable fog only to find myself surrounded. I'd have been rent flesh in a few seconds but our 'friend' intervened just in the nick of time," he recounted.

"Friend?" furrowed Lady Sybilla for a moment and then followed by the sudden realization, "The cloaked man."

The Sergeant nodded, "The very same. I'll let him plead his case Milady and you be the judge of his character."

"I don't think that would be possible sergeant," piped in Izora, "The last I saw of him, he and he alone faced the entire horde. It was a valiant act deserving of ballads and tribute," it was the kind of act that she'd have thought fitting in a fairy tale. One man against the hordes of damnation. Izora felt a pair of contradicting emotion welling inside of her: Awe and melancholy. She would've loved to get to know the man that had saved them. But alas, as she had learned the hard way this past month, reality can be harsh.

"Young Mistress," interjected the Sergeant, "Surely you saw the decimated ranks of undead that we passed when we made our hasty retreat?"

Izora nodded, "Of course. But what- -"

"Our friend, the stranger, dealt with them. All of them."

"I-Impossible! H-he must have compatriots?!" Izora shockingly exclaimed, disbelieving such feat.

"All by his lonesome," the Sergeant reaffirmed. "And from what I can gleam from him, he had been doing this sort of work for some time now. If anyone can survive such odds, it'd be him."

Izora didn't know what to say to that, her mind reeling. But the Sergeant seems so sure of his abilities.

"And this location?" Lady Sybilla veered back the conversation to other matters. The question of the man's extraordinary strength can be put of for the time being. They have far urgent matters at hand.

"He merely told me to follow the felled trees. The further the better. And only said that it was safe for the time being," the Sergeant answered.

"Well, whoever our friend maybe, we owe him our lives," Lady Sibylla turned to her people, "And let us not squander his sacrifice. We have been given a godsend of a savior in a situation that should have no hope of escaping. And yet here we are."

"We have much work to and daylight is precious. Master Lambert and Master Imbert, see what needs tending with wagons and the animals. Mistress Umphrey, an updated inventory of our medicinal tonics will be much appreciated and Mister Tobye......," and on she went, sending the people immediate errands.

They were all tired but still driven as they performed their given tasks.

Izora dropped her rear on a stump and nearly lost consciousness. Muscles seized up and bones weighed as if the world had set upon her shoulders. She damn neared dozed off as soon as she sat. She looked up and felt even more ashamed as she didn't have the same will as her mother who even now, played pretend the visage of an unyielding Baroness. Her mother's words came back to Izora's mind, and true enough, there was the slightest twitch in her eye, how she smiled a second too long and a stiffness to her words whenever she spoke. But the people didn't see it. Her mother was tired and far more dejected than any of them that their trepidations would continue till they find the Order.

Play pretend. Such simple words at first but to do so now would take great will to conjure and maintain in front of so many eyes. Worse still was how Izora felt, being so inept for the destined heir apparent to House Silverwell after her mother.

"Her ladyship is under a lot of stress," came the words beside her. She looked up, unrecognizing and unnoticing the sudden appearance of a man beside her. How she didn't even notice his present was unnerving but his words carried weight as did his gaze.

Abruptly she stood up, eyes wide as realization dawning in on her, "Y-you!? How!?"

It was none other than the cloaked stranger.

"How are you here?"

Already, she might add but kept quiet. They had put a league between them and the dead. It hadn't passed half an hour since she saw him last making his stand against the horde. For a man on foot, it should have taken much longer to traverse the terrain.

A moment of silence passed.

He stared at her unblinking.

"I ran away," he said simply.

He was averting the question nonchalantly. It was simple and no hesitation on his part but Izora noticed that brief moment of silence and made a mental note of the fact. As much as she was grateful that he have saved them, he was still a stranger and trust is needed to be earned.

"But why are you all disheartened anyway? I'd have thought you all to be in high spirits after my rescue," He couldn't have been that much older than her but the way he spoke made her feel as if she is conversing with someone who was well beyond what his appearance suggests.

"And for what? Another week of travelling? A month? We are tired and afraid. Ever since we fled our homes it has nothing but fighting and running. There used to be more of us when we started. Some went on their separate ways, while others......others we lost," Their losses weren't as severe as those of other houses. In the grand scheme of things, one might say that it was a loss that can be shouldered if one were to look at the numbers. But for each of those number was a person. A life. Longtime friends and neighbors that have ingrained in Izora's daily life. They were a part of her world. And they were forever gone.

Adelie the washerwoman who occasionally gossip with Izora and share bawdy jokes that sent the young heir as red as a tomato, lost.

Reeve Richal, as insufferable as he was, would scold much of the current generation of youth for dalliances and tomfoolery, showed surprising courage when among other volunteers refused to flee, Izora remembered the steadfastness of his gaze when he declared that he would gladly die on the land his forebearers

And young sweet Frederick. Simple Frederick who was stuck in his own world but was always ready to lend a helping hand, even as others called him simple behind his back. He was the happiest person Izora ever knew. She knew not what became of him, escaped, died or worse.

She pinched the bridge of her nose, having just realized their fates, along with others, still weighed heavily on her. She had pushed back on these thoughts, not wanting to deal with the emotions that chained them. The young heir took a deep breathe and continued with her woes.

"During our journey, we came upon news that an entire order of knights had been dispatched so close to the Frontier. They had amassed a following. We were-I mean, we are- - hoping to join up with them and add our strength to theirs," Izora learned that It's a brutal thing, to hope, in despairing times. But play pretend and maybe she'd end up believing it too, as her mother had advised. They had come too far, to give up now would be to spit at the struggle they endured.

"Is that all? You wish to find the Knight Order?" was his reply.

Izora looked at him with rankled brows and was irked at his tone, as if he was scoffing at all they had to bear these past few weeks. But the look on his face was simple and showed no ridicule, just guileless curiosity.

And then she thought back on his reply, "What do you mean 'is that all'?"

"You won't have to travel much further. So do not despair," her brows furrowed at his unusual remark. It was unnerving to meet his gaze. Sensing her confusion, he then added, "Follow, it's better that you see for yourself."

"See what?" she demanded. She thought back on his words, and then the pieces were slowly coming into place, but she didn't want to give in to the slow poison of hope. Still, she could not contain it. He led the way atop at one of the many hills and rock outcrops that littered the landscape. They crested the steepest, the nearest, among the makeshift refuge of the grounds surrounding the caravan. Izora's thighs burned and she was slightly out of breath as they neared the crest of the ridge while the stranger showed almost no sign of fatigue. Come to think of it, he hardly seemed to break a sweat even after battling a horde of the dead with only a tree branch.