“Come, invaders! Come and meet your ends!”

There was a cold wind that sped through the town. Open windows and swinging doors all seemed to howl as the voice bounced down the main road. This enclosed town of Carmoss had recently been overtaken by new inhabitants. Each of them heard the call of some demanding individual outside, and so the merriment and discussions ceased.

A few faces appeared in the windows, some pushed open the doors, and others confidently took to the street to face the newcomer. People dressed with shabby leathers and animal furs filled the dragonkin’s vision. Christoph’s disguise remained, and all saw a stern youth with an axe in his hands claiming he’d purge their people.

Several men entered the street or walked along the wooden decks constructed on the buildings—a sidewalk of sorts to provide the people easier movement. Their leather boots could be heard like murmurs on the wind as they clacked across the wood. All of them had weapons. Anything from axes, bows, knives, swords, or hammers hung from each one of the men.

Christoph saw more feminine faces in many of the windows, but soon even some of the women had taken to the street as well. They gathered up and made a wall of bodies to stand like a swelling tidal wave to take out the foolish attacker. Proclaiming he’d be their end put them in a good mood, as each smiled and joked as they approached.

“You!” One voice was drawn out. The language barrier between the two groups was still obvious, but at least they made an attempt. “Come here?” He turned toward his people, the twenty-seven that had gathered with him, and spoke something in a more harsh language. They all laughed; their hands still empty feeling no threat.

Due to the magic item he wore, Christoph heard those words clearly in his head. “He’s come to end us? The fool!”

Christoph took that in. His eyes glanced over each of the individuals to see who was already carrying a weapon and who looked most likely to draw the fastest. This standoff was what he wanted. All in one place. Christoph had fought against their kind once, but now he stood alone before a small horde. This time; however, he smiled at the prospect.

Examining the man that spoke first, Christoph found him to be a taller, slender man with tanned skin. He had a shaggy beard that wrapped entirely around his face in uneven strands of wild black. His hair fell over his wide eyes as he turned back toward the solitary foe. Peeling back his lips in a grin revealed teeth that seemed considerably healthy within the ghoulish man’s head. He wasn’t scarred or incredibly dirty, but the filth on him and his gear caught Christoph’s nose. Those brown eyes of the barbarian stared into his illusionary pupils.

“Come to da?” Surely, he’d meant, Come to die? The tongue in his head couldn’t seem to form the letters correctly. The rest of the group laughed behind him.

That was, until Christoph lifted the axe in his right hand. He didn’t swing it with malice, but he did twist it and examine it. Looking back to the crowd with a smile, he nodded his head to the side.

Only the man out front, perhaps ten paces ahead of the rest and twenty from Christoph, moved his eyes from the axe made by his people and followed the intruder’s gaze. There were two bodies on the ground still wearing their furs and leathers. One of them; however, had one arm raised.

This barbarian man’s eyes turned from humorous, to terrified, and then to enraged in a matter of a second. His cheeks puffed out and the flesh beneath his nature-teased hair filled with blood. Heavy breathes lifted and dropped his shoulders as pectoral muscles flexed. Christoph would have found this man intimidating in life. Even the small arsenal the man carried was worrisome.

But now…

Now, he found this to be a joy. His undead mind regarded the man as a lion does a mouse hissing and clawing at the air. Adorably futile. A last ditch effort of a mindless beast that hadn’t come to terms with fate.

Death is inevitable for all, thought the undead mind of Christoph.

The barbarian continued to watch the dead man’s arm twitch and turn as some hunched creature squatted beside him. At the distance, he saw only a blurred face lifted upward as a human hand disappeared into it. That false face of Gitma looked to the sky to ignore the horrors that occurred below. Slurping and stripping the flesh away, the arm’s meat peeled away from the bone before even those crunched and disappeared into the creature’s mouth.

“Monster!” His words came out in another language, but Christoph continued to understand through his magic items.

It made the disguised dragonkin curl up his lips in a smile. “That is my comrade, Gitma. She’s just eating.” The sounds still made his skin crawl, but showing that would make him lose face in front of the enemy. He stood as strong as he could against the disgusting noises. “She won’t intervene unless you try to run.”

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Part of Christoph tried to scream, What are you doing?! That smallest shred of fearful humanity tried to pull free of the tar-like pool that the undead mind had filled with. Humanity would continue to struggle against the fires of the dragonkin sky and the bubbling pitch of the undead lands below. This dangerous and volatile barrier between the two left the flesh of man in a dangerous state—yet he tried to cry out all the same.

Christoph smiled and tried to ignore the horrific snapping of bones by his comrade. He kept his attention on the enemy.

“You die now!” The man swung an arm around to grab out his own short axe. He’d already begun sprinting at Christoph with his hair flapping like a bird caked with mud. The madman was prepared to take the lad’s head.

Christoph saw every movement the man made; a man running through water. The way the axe curved outward to arch back in with a slight, upward angle. Each step the man took on his path toward a kill. It was all obvious to him.

Then the axe made contact. Blood spilled into the air and a head had indeed been lopped from the shoulders. Flesh had split, and a light had been snuffed out. As it fell to the ground, the crowd looked on in horror.

A single moment was all it took.

Christoph held the axe in his hand so the crimson blade rose up from his shoulder. He smiled at the faces he could see. As the pitch of madness rolled up and coated his humanity further, his eyes became red—even the illusion’s eyes filled with crimson.

“Next?”

A number of the barbarians were frozen in place. One of their strongest, as it seemed, had been cut down with a single blow. Movement they couldn’t quite comprehend had left them feeling a terror that was neither magical nor unreasonable. The dead man’s neck pumped blood into the dirt as the head fumbled to a stop with his glazed eyes staring back at his people.

There were a few that slid a foot back; be it for defense or for fleeing. Then there were the brave or stupid that removed their weapons from rest and prepared to honor their fallen comrade. Several men of various builds and gear began their approach.

They were not a mindless band of vagrants. They were hardened warriors from a harsher land, but that still left them a more animalistic style of fighting. Christoph hadn’t had the most progressive or lengthy of training, but he understood a bit more of the true basics of combat skills than many of them. That, and the difference in power between the groups was almost palpable.

Three men rushed forward after sharing nods. One with a long sword he held back with two hands, another with two short axes, and a third with a shortsword and an axe. All rushed the killer that simply watched their advancements. He took in their movements and prepared himself. His hand fell and curved the axe down to his side.

As the man charging down the center with his weighted sword began to lift the blade, Christoph took a sudden step forward that closed the gap. Lifting his arm again, the rounded end of the axe that anchored it to the wood contacted the swordsman’s chin. All the momentum of the clashing warriors flowed directly up the man’s jaw as he immediately began traveling backwards in a crescent. The blade skid across the ground and fell flat with several clangs.

The two men had lost their target for a moment. Their eyes both opened wide as they turned inward at the grunt of their companion. This newcomer was standing over their collapsing friend as he crumpled to the ground and landed on his neck. A chilling snap was heard when the man contacted the dirt.

Christoph kept the axe moving and took a step to his left. That man, trying to change directions and attack, couldn’t raise his two axes fast enough. He held them out at his sides as if he’d catch his prey like a mantis. Wide open to an attack down the center, the axe move in and lifted the man off the ground. The blade was buried deep into his sternum as he began to soar into the air; the sudden heat firing through his body like a thermal pocket granting the eagle flight.

As if he were dancing, Christoph spun as the man’s momentum carried him up and over his head. He stepped beneath the body and twisted to better aim his projectile. Removing the blade with a sudden jerk, the body began to straighten its trajectory.

Dodging to the side, the last man standing avoided his neighbor’s body which continued toward the ground with horrid screams. The others watched as he closed the gap. He might have considered himself the greatest warrior they had, if only for a second. He saw how so many had failed, but he was moving in without hesitation. His axe in one hand, and a sword in the other, he was ready to split the lad in two.

But, his dreams of glory were cut short as all the others had come to realize. The axe that cut down several men that day was airborne. It only spun before the blade plunged into the man’s shoulder, splitting the collarbone like a twig, and sunk into the heart. He hit the ground before he ever found glory.

Christoph turned toward the remaining members of this wandering tribe with a smile. His eyes were brightly painted with the crimson hue as if all the blood in his body were pooling in his skull. That uncaring mindset we call madness is but the undead’s natural state. Though he did remember his family as he avenged their loss, a shiver of enjoyment swam up his spine.

Three groups emerged. One of these teams lunged into battle with the ferocity of cornered beasts. The next turned and tried to scatter amongst the buildings or toward the gate behind them. That last group… they stood still like sentry golems constructed to bear witness to these events. Watch as the King of the Undead reaps the stolen lands of your wandering peoples. Watch and know the futility of your existence.

As the remaining men and women scattered to the various winds, Christoph pulled back and loosed a roaring laugh. The blackened pitch of the undead began to smother humanity beneath the dragon’s burning sky… all became black and crimson. “Unhallowed Aura” had begun to pour out of the beast to spread the nightmarish pitch over all gathered.

The magical disguise faded, and all prsent saw the true form of their attacker.

“Come and meet your end!”