“Seems like they holed themselves up nicely in the city.” a wood elven member of the Dhau-Íssz said while crouching, his dark robe decorated with the clean white bones of elven and human kind creasing down on his slim body with a deathly pale skin made even whiter thanks to the body paint all members of the cult decorate themselves with to further identify themselves with the forces of Death, namely in this case with the Deadfire.
“We should report before the undead notice us” his partner says in her raspy yet soft voice. The human Dhau-Íssz, who is one of the humans of the fallen kingdom of the north clad in a similar dark robe, her face wrinkled in her early adulthood thanks to the extensive use of death magic, her once pinkish fair skin now a deathly pale colored, the paint appearing crude on her skin while her pupils lost their color, making her appear to be blind, yet her sight is still relatively good as she surveils the undead, noticing the pitch black darkness oozing from their rotten bodies instead of the usual light bluish or purple colors of negative matter binding the souls of the deceased or a sign of their substitute soul necromancers tend to make from parts of their own.
“Yeah, I’ve seen the work of many necromancers. These creep me out, and I don’t even sense any mind tricks infused into them” The wood elf says while funneling his corrupted mana into his faded green eyes, examining the undead from the cliffside, peeking from between two giant rocks forming into devilish horns, emitting a cool reddish light. “We have to report as soon as possible, before any of the gods detect these abnormalities” he adds after noticing one of the undead, once a dark elven citizen of the city missing half of his face revealing the skull mutated by the strange dark energies, the once whitish bones turned dark, barely visible, a lighter darkness forming into a monstrous pupil in the empty eyeholes that seemingly turned in the direction of the two peepers, a primal coldness running through both bodies making them shiver instinctively.
“Let’s mo…” before he could have finished his sentence the dark hood of the robe pressed onto his head tightly as a clean white thread, muffling his gasp of surprise, his body quickly rocketing up the air towards the owner of the thread. “Shit” is the only thing leaving the dry heart shaped lips of the woman of the Dhau-Íssz as her head that was looking at her partner tilts up in the same speed as the wood elf approaching its captor while his arms and legs flail around in the air, trying to grab onto the thread and break it with little to no success. Then she finally spots the undead construct, hanging from the dark thorny walls, the darkness emanating from its body eating away the soft cool glow of the rock formation, its abdomen facing down while the rest including its masculine ogre body perfectly fitting in place where once the half body of a beautiful dark elven woman stood with its flesh and bones completely exposed, either because of the manner of its death or because of the advanced stage of the necrotic energies rotting and changing its body.
Then the spider like abdomen springs open revealing even more hands that grab the unlucky dragon cultist holding him down completely with their supernatural strength, his screams muffled by the thick white spider web and the slowly closing abdomen. As it all goes down, the human cultist makes a gulping noise even though her throat is dry as a desert, slowly starting to walk backwards while the strange even for her undead construct slowly turns around and lets out a shriek that shakes her to her core. Because she is adept at death magic, she is well aware that her partner is a lost cause and her only option is to run, even though her legs are frozen in place and heavy like logs of dawnwood. She takes a deep breath or two, managing to calm herself down and starts condensing and funneling her mana into her arms, a gentle feeling of cold running through them as she starts chanting, casting a frost infused spell towards the undead constructs eight legs, seemingly freezing the amalgamation to the walls a few meters above herself.
The undead construct waits for a few moments, before letting out another shriek as it easily breaks the legs out of the frozen bindings, then it quickly hurls itself towards the dragon cultist with its long masculine ogre hands with its palms open, grabbing the head of the woman and crashing it to the horn like rock formation they used as their covers, her frail head explodes like a watermelon hit by a hammer with great force behind it, her brain and skull splattering all over, some remaining on the large palms of the construct who opens its mouth, a long abnormal tongue sprouting from the pitch black darkness of it licks them off. Then it shoots out a thread attaching it to the naked feet of the corpse and starts heading towards the city with it and the captive in its abdomen who have already given up.
**
4th of the 12th Epoch, 768 of the First Age.
The vile sound of bone breaking, the flesh being heavily damaged to the point that it splits open revealing the gory red insides, saliva slowly accumulating in the mouths of the war beasts of the Hvitr-Ha’ygr as they look upon the remains of the fallen foes, the remaining troops of the fallen kingdom of Viðr, their once polished snow whitish armour broke open by the axe of Vro-Ghahk the leader of the Hvitr-Ha’ygr and the warband attacking the small outpost where the small contingent of Viðr soldiers holed themselves up to continue their guerrilla strikes against the smaller patrolling bands of the horde.
“Give some to the beast, burn the rest” Vro-Ghahk screams his deep voice, the fear that fallen over him the past few weeks no longer weighting down thanks to the potion his clan’s Arch-Shaman brewed up allowing him to not need more than an hour or two of sleep, making the occasional nightmares much more bearable, at least partially even though this and the previous few raids on the smaller camps of the remaining Viðr troops scattered around the vast northern forests also helped easing his mind.
“Will this progress not fan the flames between our clan and the Hlátr-Scaelu Chief?” one of his warriors finishing dragging the corpse of a young man, barely recognizable thanks to his face bitten by the strong jaws of one of the barghests of Vro-Ghahks group, missing almost a quarter of it. “While we cleaned up quite the few camps, there are still plenty for them to hunt, including the moon elves and their remaining settlements” Vro-Ghahk answers while he stares into the forest covered in deep snow as far as his yellowish eyes can see, feeling the gaze of multiple from the distance, moon elves most likely as he notes in his mind, memories surfacing of that day, the images of the Thing appearing in his vision with a shadow falling over the forest that was previously highlighted by the cool lights of the winter sun. His body starts shivering just from the faint image, but the Vro-Ghahk takes a deep breath, calming himself slowly deciding to not tell the others unaware of their stalkers, about the moon elves watching them.
If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
While the two group are clearly hostile to each other, the Hvitr-Ha’ygr are the only major clan of the Horde that while enslave their captives, after a certain amount of time offer them kinship within the clan, which contrary to what the other clans believe led to many moon elves and northern folk to join the Hvitr-Ha’ygr, even though the moon elves were still reluctant to give up the location of their former homes, the best they offered is a meeting between the leaders of both sides but nothing came of that yet, even though Vro-Ghahk still hopes that it will happen sooner than later.
Especially because while they easily managed to take down the most of the remnants of the fallen kingdom of Viðr, the moon elves themselves incurred some major casualties to the Horde, killing at least two minor clan leaders, destroyed three horde outposts, setting them on fire during the night when there were only a few patrols and sentries guarding it. And while so far these losses could be negated, it is only a matter of time before the southern kingdoms and the Empire decide to restabilise the north. While the Nightscale destroyed most of the Kingdom of Viðr, including killing the royal family, or at least most of it. According to the spies of the Horde operating in the south, there have been one survivor, the middle son of the King from his third wife, who knowing that he may not inherit the throne decided to live a life of adventure.
For a few years he stayed in the north, where he defeated quite the few monsters that terrorised the kingdom at the time, gaining the friendship of multiple moon elven clans, even siring a half-elven son with one of their high priestesses. Then just a few years prior to the appearance of the Nightscale he moved down to the south to spread his fame, hunt the various monsters and dark wizards and sorcerers of the south, while also mate with the elves of the south.
While Vro-Ghahk recalls all of these information’s he heard from the Prelate of the Nightscale, the war band of his that would meld into the snowy forest scenery thanks to their special body paint if not for their darkish crude fur, bone and metal armor, finish setting half of the corpses on fire while the other half of the small Viðr guerrilla force are munched on by the Barghests and the Vaiorgrs, large quadrupedal feline monsters, slightly mutated by the blessing of the Nightscale turning their usual brownish fur in to a darker colour with a purplish glow in the cool lights of the sun, large horns sprouting from their back and head, running through their whole body ending at where their tails start, even some scales can be seen if someone looks hard enough under their fur, while their paws turned into clawed dragon like hands capable of tearing armour easily apart, while slicing stone like butter.
“Let’s return home my friends, a feast awaits us tonight” Vro-Ghahk screams with authority from the bottom of his throat, his warriors screaming in unison while raising their battle hardened arms in the air, the moon elves in the distance shiver and admire the warrior who took one last look at their leader, a young looking moon elven maiden with snow white smooth elven skin, her hair long tied elegantly in a long high tail while her face is framed in both sides by her long hair reaching down to her perky breasts covered in their icy bluish elven glistening metal armour with a faint hue, with their ethereal silken material under it covering their whole body from the harsh cold of the north. She signals to her scout to lower their bows and to their spellcasters to start silently chanting the spell that will take them home.
**
A soft wet sound echoed through the halls of the former dark elven governors’ main home in the ruined city which lost its name after the Nightscale destroyed the city, as the wood elven Dhau-Íssz falls out from the abdomen of the Arachne undead with the upper torso of a skinned ogre. His hands tightly bound together, his wrists crossing on each other with the white thread keeping them together. He groans slowly as he starts waking up, the undead standing guard at the large opening of the building where once the large wooden double doors stood poke him with their dwarven crafted spears.
The undead help him get up on his knees and then hold him down with their rotten hands on his shoulders still covered by his dark robe with bone made pauldrons on his right shoulder edge. His sight slowly adjusts to the darkness that fill the large chamber, seeing at least six more of his clan members on their knees and a moon elven figure with a dark cloak draping on his two-meter-tall body, his features barely visible in the dark, especially from the side ways to the wood elven Dhau-Íssz member.
Then in the next moment the chamber lit up in a deep blue light as a sinister mist made of the Nameless’s mana appearing around his slender left arm, a mix of dark and moon elven tones here and there without any pattern, the hands crooked yet still retain their elven elegance, the fingers on each ending in claws similar to ones that basilisks and other reptilian type monsters possess. Then as soon as the runes appeared they dissipate into the nothingness, the darkness returning and the wood elven Dhau-Íssz barely seeing anything once more, fear starting to dwell inside him.
Then once again the deep blue runes appear with the Nameless appearing in front of the orc Dhau-Íssz beside the previous one, this time the wood elven Dhau-Íssz manages to see his face under the hood of the tattered dark elven cloak with golden trims, noticing his typical androgynous male elven face that sometimes makes them hard to discern from the females, noticing the mixture of the dark and moon elven skin tones once more, below his lower lip his skin is as dark as the night itself, while the top part of his face white as the northern snow itself with eyes that have at least eight different pupils stacked together in the small slanted almond space, some focusing on the orc Dhau-Íssz in front of him while at least three look in the direction of the wood elven Dhau-Íssz.
Then the same process repeats itself until the Nameless walks slowly to the wood elven Dhau-Íssz, at which point he notices the weird dark veins that appear like cracks on his body forming into a tree shape with the bottom covered by the long dark elven kilt reaching down to the feet of the Nameless. The wood elven Dhau-Íssz tries to plead for his life but before he could he decides against it, which he immediately finds weird realizing that he is already under the control of the Nameless who after looking through his memories sighs in disappointment, Then the blue runes turns just dark melding into the nothingness of the empty space of the building, an uncomfortable cold feeling runs through the being of the wood elven Dhau-Íssz and the four nearest to him then they feel their body rapidly decaying, their sight turning dark as their eyes turn to dust, the wind blowing it away, then the undead release the dried rotten husks of the four Dhau-Íssz, the thread binding their hands drying up and breaking apart as the pitch black darkness fills their body, corrupting their already rotten souls even more, binding them to the will of the Nameless.
Without saying a single word, the Nameless disappears in the lightless interior of the building while the undead lead the remaining three Dhau-Íssz out, silently bidding them goodbye as they guide them out the ruined city, letting them head back to their Dark Elven Lich master. Meanwhile Undead Constructs start grouping up with the other undead, readying themselves to hunt some specimens of the Upper Stratum of the Bottom Layer for the Nameless.