Harrin wasn’t dead.

That was the first thing he thought when consciousness returned. The second was a dazed query of how to answer whether he was alive or dead when he was undead.

Memory snapped back all at once, Kelden and the barrels and Senna rushing to the forefront of his mind. He - he couldn’t move. His arms weren’t obeying him.

...No, just his left arm. Clutching at the ground, he tried to push himself up, only to be met with resistance. Something was on top of him. A log? No, a metal pole. The central pole that had been supporting Kelden’s tent.

Senna was lying on the limb in question, and she wasn’t moving. He could see her back shift as she breathed, so she wasn’t dead, but she appeared to be unconscious.

“...Wot in the seven…”

Harrin froze at the sound of the voice. It was quiet, hushed in awe, but close by. Raising his skull, he looked up to find the source.

A chunk of the mercenaries’ camp was singed, blackened patches of canvas soggy with fresh water. Most of those not carrying buckets were near to what was left of Kelden’s tent, murmuring to each other in stunned tones.

Kelden’s speech came to Harrin’s mind, and a seed of wrath sparked somewhere in his soul, if he had one. These people committed acts of murder and arson and who knew what else and shifted the blame to someone else. It wasn’t logic and it was almost the opposite of honor.

In other words, the sort of people Harrin detested.

Twisting his free arm around at an angle which would have been impossible had he been alive, he grabbed the pole pinning him to the ground and pushed upward. There was less weight holding it down than he’d expected, and he rose to his feet a moment later, gripping the pole one-handed as he draped the canvas tent partially over Senna. The shield was scorched black, but still looked usable, so he grabbed that as well. He didn’t know where his sword was.

The mercenaries gathered before him backed away, a low murmur of shock running through them like a ripple over a pond. Most of them were barely dressed, pajamas and long underwear being more common than any sort of armor. Only those who had been on guard duty had a weapon on hand.

Harrin didn’t care whether they were armed or not. Honor suddenly dropped behind vengeance, something he’d never thought possible. Holding the pole aloft, he slashed it from side to side, testing the heft. Due to its length, it wasn’t balanced in the slightest, but it was a weapon, and longer than any sword he knew of.

The few men who possessed weapons rushed forward, shouting orders to their compatriots to get their weapons. Harrin still didn’t care. Lowering it into a spearman’s stance, he lunged forward and rammed the pole into the closest man’s stomach.

The mercenary didn’t even have the chance to try and block it and stumbled backwards, a whoof of displaced air exploding from him as his lungs were forcibly emptied. Slamming the pole upward into the merc’s chin, Harrin coldly watched the light go out of his eyes as he collapsed.

Two of them came at him then, both with shortswords. With a vicious sideways motion, he whacked the pole into the sides of their heads, with barely a blink of time between the impacts. Their necks kinked unnaturally, and they fell.

Winding up, Harrin threw the pole full-on at the man who had been raising a bow. It struck him in the knee, shattering it instantly, and he went down screaming. Sprinting forward, Harrin scooped up the discarded blades and put the bowman out of his misery with a slash across the neck.

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Harrin heard a hiss and folded at the knees, dropping to his back as a weapon skimmed through the space he’d occupied a fraction of a second ago. Slashing at where it’d come from, he felt the sword dig into flesh, shortly followed by a pained grunt.

Digging his heels into the ground, he pivoted and slid away, jumping to his feet as he assessed the new opponent. It was a giant of a man, wielding a massive axe. It looked to be in good condition, but he was wearing a tunic instead of armor, and he wasn’t putting any weight on his injured ankle.

Resting his weight on the balls of his feet, Harrin rushed forward. Startled, the man swung downward and Harrin dodged with plenty of space to spare. He slashed the man across the chest, and as he doubled over Harrin slit his throat.

Shieldbearers came at him next, handaxes at the ready. Dropping the shortswords, he seized the axe from the ground and smashed the shields aside, throwing them off balance. Instead of flipping his grip and bringing his heavy weapon back around, Harrin dropped it and simply grabbed them both by the neck. With a clench of his fist, they were dead.

The world lit up white, and a shout of thunder followed.

Harrin nearly lost consciousness from the blast of lightning that struck him, tumbling head over heels until he crashed into a tent. It promptly collapsed, enveloping him in canvas and ropes. He lay there for a moment, stunned.

He heard voices, a woman speaking in a horrified tone. “What was that?!”

“I don’t know! I-it was a skeleton, right?”

“I’ve never seen a skeleton do anything like that! Kars, Jon… oh, Rist - look what it did to Rist!”

Harrin shook the dazedness away and examined himself. The spell hadn’t hit him directly, thankfully, but four ribs were fractured and two were broken entirely. He found himself grateful to be undead for the first time in his unlife - a strike like that might have killed him had he any flesh on his bones.

“Can you heal him?”

“I… I don’t know. Maybe?”

Slowly moving around in the collapsed tent, trying to avoid garnering any attention, Harrin felt around until he found one of the poles that had been supporting the tent. Gripping it near the end, he squeezed until it splintered, leaving a reasonable stake in his hands.

“He’s not getting better!”

“You’re not helping!”

“How can I help!?”

“Shut up!”

Holding the makeshift stake close to his body, Harrin pulled the canvas up until he could see the campsite. A crowd of people stood some distance away, watching a robed woman and an armored man huddled over a still body. A dull white glow came from her hands, gently coalescing over the body’s frame.

Bending his knees, Harrin kept an eye on the woman. She was clearly a mage and therefore at the very top of the priority list, and no one else was helping, which meant she was likely the only one. All he had to do was wait for a moment to come. A split second where he could break back into the fight and take out the greatest threat.

The man anxiously hovered around her. “Why isn’t it working?”

“I’m not a healer, cark it!” She snapped at him, not looking away from the corpse. It appeared to be the man whose ankle he’d cut.

Harrin glanced towards Kelden’s collapsed tent. Senna still hadn’t moved.

Focusing on the task at hand, Harrin propped the canvas on the stake, pressed one hand on the ground, and lifted himself, rotating around beneath the tent as quietly as he could. The mage occupied the undivided attention of everyone present - no one watched him as he lowered himself to the ground, digging his feet into the cold dirt.

He would have taken a breath then, if he had lungs with which to draw it. But he didn’t, and so it was without breath or sound that he shot from the tent like an arrow from a bow.

No one saw him until it was far too late, a startled shout rising from the crowd. Harrin buried the stake in the mage’s chest, a foot snapping out to smash her companion in the face. They died almost in sync, Harrin dropping to the ground as it happened. Spinning, he yanked the knife out of the dead man’s belt, slammed a hand on the ground, and launched himself upward to his feet.

He glanced down at the short knife in his hand, and then at the crowd of mercenaries before him, half-dressed in armor and holding a number of assorted weapons.

His skull was forever fixed in a death grin, but it suddenly felt genuine.

They didn’t stand a chance.