Theo yawned, after another night with very little sleep. He squeezed his eyes shut, jumping up and down on the spot to bring some life back into his bones. He activated Rest for the fifth time that morning, and it did just as little as the last four times.

Exhaustion didn’t count as injury, unfortunately.

He looked over at the cages where all the prisoners were held, and that woke him up.

Each warrior was held separately, all restrained by their wrists and ankles. Even now, half a day after they were captured, they were still weakly struggling against their restraints.

Theo spotted more than one snapped vine and quite a few weeping sap, all signs of resistance even now. Their eyes were blank, and he wasn’t sure if he hoped they were in control of their bodies or not right now.

He shook the cold out of his hands, and turned his attention back to the coming battle.

---

Dawn came and went.

Nobody moved from Etol’s camp. It was like a ghost town, even as Theo and his fellow frontline combatants crossed no man’s land and trudged through mud closer and closer to their camps.

Eventually, they stopped, uneasy and unsettled. After the past few days of constant fighting, the absence of its presence was more unnerving than anything so far.

“Should we go back?” Someone asked out loud. Theo wasn’t sure exactly who said that, as his eyes were still focused on taking in every inch of the Etol camp. Looking out for any movement at all, or even just a sign of life.

The tents didn’t give him any reassurance, dead in the lack of wind.

“Yeah, let’s head back.” Someone else agreed. That was all the encouragement they needed, as they all slowly retreated, keeping eyes out in case of ambushes from every direction, but they didn’t see anything.

Of course, that was when an arm emerged from the earth, pulling Theo’s leg into the muddy earth of no man’s land.

He jumped straight into the air, startled. Striding Wind helpfully gave him some more time away from the surly bonds of the earth, but unfortunately it did not let him escape entirely. He was airborne for a few seconds, enough time to register what was currently crawling up his leg.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

The arm had come with him, still moving, attached to no body but his. It was caked in mud, however the sallow flesh underneath and armour coating it made it clear that it was not just an ominously shaped stick.

He screamed, and although he wished it was a manly sound, it definitively was not. Nobody would notice, however, as that was not the only scream that came out.

As Theo landed, he finally shook the hand off and found himself facing the body that it had once been attached to, sans right arm.

It was still a mostly in-tact corpse, rigor mortis not yet set in, face only slightly swollen. It almost looked alive, if it wasn’t for the pale almost-green colour to its skin, and the fact that it was missing an arm with no blood coming out of the gaping wound.

Theo screamed again, sending out a backfire in its general vicinity.

A hole was carved out of its chest, exposing bones and chunks of muscle that hung from the edges like worms.

For all Theo knew it could have actually been worms, but he tried not to think about that possibility.

Instead, he redoubled his effort in getting as far away from this abomination as possible.

He started to scream again, but this time with purpose. The mud underneath him solidified, and it also trapped the corpse that was once an enemy and was now just a monster.

And then he ran, tearing a trail through the battlefield as he screamed.

Moments later, he stopped and screamed as he started to run the other way.

Theo had found more of the previously dead in his path.

There were also others indulging in the panic and pandemonium, as the reality of what was happening started to sink in, like a leg into thick mud filled with grasping dead arms.

In fact, almost nobody who remained on the frontlines had maintained their composure, dead aside. Although a case could be made that they had no composure to maintain and thus couldn’t be considered for this matter in the first place.

There was only one person who wasn’t screaming, but composure was perhaps not the best term to describe maniacal laughter.

Guiding Will strode grandly towards Union City, emerging from a tent in their backlines. A grin graced his face as he held his arms out, welcoming all the chaos as he looked towards the heavens.

“Behold, all those who have turned from the light of the Gods, the power that is bestowed upon true believers! The ability to defy death itself!” More and more corpses rose from the earth, as motes of prayers fell down like powder snow.

Guiding Will inhaled deeply, savouring the smell of death and decay that was starting to emanate from the critical mass of shambling bodies that were populating the battlefield.

Theo and the other warriors were clearly outnumbered.

“You bastard!” He heard Jenny yell.

Guiding Will chuckled. “I’m not sure what I’ve done to deserve such treatment. Even in death it is possible to find the light. I’m doing you all a favour.”

Theo saw what had angered Jenny. Limping forward, dressed in the standard issue armour of the College of War, was a corpse that looked different to all the others.

One of the twelve who had died in battle the day before.

The guilt and fear that had taken up residence in his gut fled his system, replaced by searing fury.

He wasn’t the only one.

The panicked scattering of headless chickens stopped, looked at the indignity that had been forced upon them, and charged back into the fray.

The apprehension at the abominations was not gone, but it was no longer a priority.

They could freak out once they made sure that every reanimated corpse would never rise again.