Atherus looked down upon his minion and wondered how this had happened. Most summons were restricted to the level at which they were brought back from death. And yet, this lowly ghoul had someone gained both power and sentience.
No matter. He would crush the will of this… what was his name again? Whatever. He’d call him ghoul # 32,433 if he wanted. The poor soul had no choice in the matter anyways, and what did it matter? The memories from its previous life were locked away in the miasma of the afterlife. Or lack of one in this fool’s case. Whoever it had been, it had clearly made many mistakes in life as it had been stuck in Limbo.
It always pleased him to no end to pluck souls from that nebulous space. They wandered aimlessly for millennia usually, and as such, they came eagerly to his call. The poor fools had no clue that there was no afterlife on the other end of the distant voice. Only servitude. Only mindless entrapment. Usually…
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Zelnith trudged along, carrying the yoke of the carriage forward with each step. How in the hell had this happened? It had been bothering him ever since he’d first been slammed to the ground as if he was nothing. Despite not having his memories, he had a sense that this should not have happened. That he had lived a life worthy of passing beyond limbo. And yet, here he was, playing carthorse to this human embodiment of a road apple.
“Oh Ghoul #32,433!” he heard shrilly from behind him. “I do think this is far enough. I can almost see the next city, and I think it best we rest here before attacking. Don’t need the citizenry panicking at the side of my big red monster before we are charging down their throats.”
He decided a little malicious compliance would be appropriate, and he promptly dropped the handles. They lodged firmly into the muddy ground, redirecting the cart’s momentum and tossing the necromancer into the air. Atherus slid a fair few more feet than intended, face first. As he got up and spat mud from his mouth, he pointed a finger at Zelnith and started to chant angrily.
“My apologies milord. You didn’t specify how to stop and my magical bindings decided for me.”
The necromancer’s face screwed up in confusion. It hadn’t been a command… but it hadn’t NOT been a command either… He would have to be more careful phrasing things. The damned thing was right. And he couldn’t prove ill intent.
Nonetheless, he was a necromancer for a reason. Zelnith felt his body slam against the filthy ground, and his mouth proceeded to eat mud. After a few mouthfuls, the compulsion stopped and he cleared his throat. “Shall I prepare the camp, milord?”
A curt nod later, he started directing some of the other corpses to assemble a large structure from the wood on the back of the wagon. He didn’t have the engineering knowledge to fully understand how, but the materials to assemble Atherus’s war room were able to be fully disassembled with ease. It provided a useful, mobile command point where the necromancer could relax in luxury while commanding his minions.
As his puppets built his mobile stronghold, Atherus started scrying to find the city’s weak points. It was larger than the last, housing a couple thousand people at least. However, the city had been built on a cliff with a tremendous drop. They surely saw it as a defensive advantage, forcing any attackers to come from one general direction instead of all sides. He knew better however. Once through the walls, they were trapped, cattle waiting to be slaughtered. And he would happily oblige.
His robes flapped freely as he went in search of his crimson champion, finally free from the mud after a THIRD cleansing spell. Damn stuff must have had some sticky peat to it. Spotting the hulking thing, he felt a reminder ring out in his head that he needed to not leave any room in his instructions. One small slip of the tongue or mind and there would be enough room for it to come for him. No matter. He was as prepared as any necromancer could be. He’d put the thing down for good, blasting its soul into a million fragments so it would know no peace for eternity.
“Ghoul number…” He began, before Zelnith pivoted and looked directly at him and said, “Zelnith is fine.”
“Yes, as I was saying ghoul #32,433, I have found a sewage tunnel that will be our way into this foolish city. They thought a strong iron gate would keep out creatures and thieves, but they know not what strength is brought to bear against them. You should be able to rip the bars from the foundation and let my troops funnel in, right beneath their sleeping noses.”
Zelnith snorted through his invisible nasal cavity before responding, “So you want your slaves to crawl through shit before they murder sleeping innocents?”
“It should be relatively clean as the city wouldn’t want disease festering below them, but you can keep speaking as you lead the way and cover the sewer in your shit if it pleases you.”
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Zelnith started his work just after dusk. The one thing he had not considered in his brilliant scheming, was that he might be delayed as the noise from puncturing stone resounded throughout the surrounding trees, attracting a few hunters.
“Oi, the fuck is that? Sounds like when I was going to town on yer mum last night!” Squiggles jibed.
“Bah, sounds more like when your sister was squealin’ in delight from my dowsing rod!” Trunkly retorted.
Zelnith froze as he heard the voices. They seemed to be drawing nearer. He chided himself for not searching nearby for hunters before beginning his task of circumnavigating the city’s front gate.
The two dwarves walked out of the treeline and saw the strangest thing they’d ever set their eyes upon. Their brains buffered as they stared at a hulking, crimson skeleton that had bones jutting out all over it’s other bones, like some sort of thorns.
“What in the blazes...” Squiggles said as Trunkly responded immediately, pulling a throwing axe from his belt loop and loosing it at the monster.
“Less talk, more fightin!”
Zelnith swung his now spike covered rib, deflecting the axe harmlessly into the ground. He saw one dwarf move off to the side as the other charged headlong, lifting a heavy battleax for an overhead chop. His forearm raised and caught the axe squarely, lodging it in between bone spikes. A short jerking motion ripped it from poor Trunkly’s grasp, and another short motion saw Zelnith’s deadly rib stab into Trunkly.
“Nooooooooooooo!” ripped from Squiggles’ lungs as he saw his brother be effortlessly killed. He unsnapped his goat horn and brought it to his lips. He almost succeeded in blowing it too, but Zelnith had turned to look upon hearing the scream and wrenched Trunkly’s battleaxe from his forearm. He had immediately thrown it. It sailed end over end, more cleanly than Squiggles would ever have believed possible given its sheer size and weight. His brother’s razor sharp axe split the goat horn, and then it split his face, lodging in his skull and brain.
Zelnith proceeded to massacre the brothers’ bodies, absorbing their soul energy. They clearly had been successful warriors as he gained a massive amount of soul energy from the two. He thanked his body’s upgrades because he didn’t know that he would have survived had these two been in the first town to fight him with Orthank. He decided then and there that he would have to come up with a solution to being caught so unaware and on his own. But that would have to wait.
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Zelnith slammed another bone spike into the cliffside, followed by pulling out the last bone spike and immediately reaching for a higher point to stab. As he slowly climbed, he set iron rods into the holes he had made and tightly looped another section of rope around them. He could see a group of corpses that had finally caught up, slowly climbing below him. They weren’t nearly as fast, but they didn’t need to be. They just had to get to the top and wait for the signal to attack.
As he worked, Zelnith considered the strange feelings that he’d been having. He had massacred more living people than most soldiers likely ever would, and he had only sacked a single town. Part of his soul instinctively recoiled from the thought, but his current situation did not allow him to decide his own actions beyond HOW he would kill more innocents. He knew that he’d likely suffer that wrath of some god after his second death, but for now, all he could do was follow orders and look for opportunities to test the boundaries of said orders.
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Atherus watched his minion approach, eyeing a clearly repaired goat horn at Zelnith’s waist curiously. “I thought I said to do it quietly?”
“I did. You try creating deep holes in solid rock without making noise. The dwarves I attracted from the surrounding forest didn’t last long enough to blow my new toy here.”
Rubbing his temples and sighing, Atherus continued, “No matter. You did well to end the dwarves. My preparations are complete, and we have even more soldier’s thanks to this city’s long and storied history of burying their dead, apparently wherever they perished.”
Zelnith looked around the camp and noticed an appreciable increase in the shuffling bodies milling about aimlessly. “Shall we start then?” And handed the horn over so Atherus could signal the start of the battle once he sensed all the troops were in position.
The necromancer chuckled gleefully before ordering, “Start the procession to the sewers. Kill all those who would oppose us my champion!”
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A long line of desiccated corpses formed as Zelnith headed to the sewer grate his master had discovered. He did not worry about their chances given how many of them had been torn from the earth surrounding the city. Many still had clods of earth still stuck to their bones. Others were obviously more fresh, half decomposed and covered in dirty clothes. Their weapons however, were all gleaming brilliantly as they had been sharpened to a razor’s edge. The rust left on the bodies of the assortment of weapons would ensure death, leaving behind pockets of infection even if the defenders managed to hold out for a time.
As he approached the grate, Zelnith couldn’t help but notice the poor construction of the sewer. There was hardly any downwards slope. The shit and piss would hardly move at all and he almost thought that maybe the city engineer’s deserved what they were about to go through.
The bars were equally poor. Thin and rusted halfway through, they almost crumbled under his grip and they ripped apart as easily as rotted wood. He began to usher the first of his fellow combatants through, listening to the sloshing as their feet swished through layers of filth. He had instructed them to find every shit hole and to climb up inside, waiting to emerge and attack until they heard the sounding of the goat horn.
In the distance, a large mass of bodies could be seen moving towards the city gate. Zelnith thought it atrociously stupid to signal the attack at all. He knew they’d have more luck with the massive spread out assault with all the off duty guards in their homes instead of geared up to fight the approaching horde. He hadn’t been able to convince Atherus that massing the city’s defenses, even in the wrong direction, was foolish.
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Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Zelnith had almost made it to the top of the cliff when a thunderous explosion rang out in the night. The city bells began tolling rapidly, signalling that the fight was on. The goat horn rang out and the undead just outside the gate began sprinting to it, ready to tear it down. He hoped they’d have some success but doubted it, as the gate was heavily reinforced with metal bands and studs to redistribute force and blunt any weapons brought to bear against it.
He didn’t have time to wonder about what happened on the other side of the city, however. He climbed the last few feet and hoisted himself onto solid ground. Looking at the paltry number of undead he had to command, he decided on a course of action. He detested it in some corner of his soul, but it seemed to be the best course of action left to him.
The shambling corpses split into several groups, going door to door throughout the city’s housing district. They politely knocked, and the home’s occupants would politely answer, only to be impolitely hacked, stabbed, and killed in whatever fashion the skeletons and corpses could manage.
Zelnith himself avoided the pleasantries and simply smashed in each door, quickly impaling the residents in various vital areas. Be it the brain, the lungs, or the heart, they all died quickly. He found that killing them so expeditiously seemed to also allow him to more quickly absorb their soul energy, some sort of work around to the goring and mutilation he’d previously down. He employed this strategy due to its efficient, and to his thinking, humane end of their short lives.
Some of the homes put up a fight, off duty guards fighting back with whatever they had nearby. A few even still in full kit managed to destroy their attackers. They secured their family’s in hiding places before heading out into the night to defend their friends and community.
It did not matter though. They were singular. Isolated. Most of the surrounding homes already ransacked. And when the towering red fiend saw them, they were quickly dispatched. Zelnith would then proceed to recheck those buildings. The remaining members rarely kept quiet enough, allowing him to locate and murder them with little effort.
The sounds of battle rang out from the gate. Crossbows clicking, spears whistling through the air, and even the occasional sword striking against bone when the undead managed to climb up the wall.
A resolute figure strode among the crowd of defenders, shouting orders and encouragement. They would hold out he knew, for their walls were stout and their gate even stouter. When he heard a clatter of distant weapons though, he grew worried. They had lit the sewer’s gases and blown the secretive attackers into smithereens. There should be no noise coming from inside the town.
“Chelz, I need you to take a few dozen fighters and investigate the deeper parts of the city. I’m sure it’s nothing, but I can almost hear what sounds like fighting. Be quick and thorough so you can return to help us finish off these mongrels.”
Chelz saluted sharply before grabbing the attention of the requisite soldiers and marching off in a grid-like searching pattern. They passed through multiple districts before they too heard the din of metal on metal before it ended abruptly.
“It sounds like it came from the housing district...” One of the soldiers murmured.
“That’s impossible! We would have seen any that got by us.” Said another.
Chelz pondered for only a second before commanding them to hurry to the district containing their families. “It doesn’t matter how unlikely it is. Our families are there and we have to ensure their safety. Now move!”
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Zelnith had started moving into a new area that seemed to be industrial in nature. The clanking noise of armor hit his skull and he moved to intercept, growling for some of the undead to follow him. The defenders at the gate must have heard them and sent a force to intervene. He decided it was time to introduce himself.
A group of four rounded the corner and he immediately set upon them. Two zombies threw themselves upon one man, chewing at the seams of his armor until they got through a a spray of blood went up. The other three had immediately started slashing and stabbing but were interrupting almost immediately.
One soldier suddenly went into the air, screaming in agony. The other two, having been coated in their other companion’s blood, turned to stare at the largest skeleton they had ever seen. They hacked at it but were repelled by strange protrusions of bone, their weapons bouncing off without leaving more than a dent.
A couple regular skeletons engaged the surviving members, parrying clumsily but keeping them preoccupied. More soldiers ran into the foray, smashing bones with maces and other blunt weapons. Zelnith dropped the skewered corpse and faced the new foes. They nearly cowered under his gaunt gaze, but the thought of their loved ones facing this monstrosity steeled their nerves. One charged him, sure that his morning star would knock off some spikes, if not the thing’s head.
How wrong he was. His friends was the thing catch the morning star, it wrapping about its arm, and then crush him into a bloody pulp with a hug that impaled him from all angles.
“Cheeeeeeelz!” A woman shouted for their leader as she stabbed a few zombies in their skulls.
The remaining forces, almost thirty in total, burst into the area and began hacking away at the enemies as more undead also poured in, finished with their grisly task in the housing district.
The all out brawl grew in intensity as screams rang out from the living defenders. Many went down in the first few moments, but even more of the attackers were bludgeoned and hacked to second death in the conflict. Zelnith had impaled and slashed more than a few himself, but he saw a growing pile of his cohorts around a human that had a strange pair of swords.
The swords seemed to be vorpal blades, slashing through all that approached, including the bones. Pieces of the undead flew through the air as they approached.
Zelnith growled a curse before commanding the rest to focus on the other defenders while he handled this one.
“Human! Face me. Face me and know your demise.”
Chelz turned to see the massive skeleton marching in their direction.
“Fuck.” They thought. Not hesitating, Chelz sprinted at Zelnith as he stabbed outwards, nimbly dodging and running up his arm while slashing all the way. Bone spikes flew from him and he enacted his regeneration. It wouldn’t outpace this warrior’s attacks, but it would buy him time.
Somersaulting off Zelnith, Chelz landed wicked attacks on his head and back. Grinning in grim satisfaction, they beheaded a passing enemy as they turned around to face the true foe. The shock was evident on Chelz face as they watch the monster regrowing bone spikes and seemingly replenishing the chunks torn from its body. Despite their agility, Chelz had not gone unscathed with their brilliant maneuver, and blood leaked from several wounds.
A glow emanated suddenly from Chelz, and the wounds began to scab over. Their ability to heal clearly did not match the skeletal champion, but the damage they could inflict certainly gave Zelnith pause. He only had so much he could withstand in a short period of time.
The two clashed yet again, trading blows of equal ferocity. Zelnith had lost most of his spikes and huge chunks of his body had been hewn away. But Chelz had been hamstrung during yet another daring attempt to slice off Zelnith’s head.
The remainder of Chelz’ forces had succumbed to the undead during their battle, unable to keep up with the couple hundred that had inevitably won out. And Zelnith marched towards the kneeling, bleeding, dying Chelz.
“You are a brave warrior. I hope you enjoy peace wherever you go from here.”
Chelz swung to intercept as Zelnith stabbed, but a pair of skeletons grabbed Chelz’s arms and held them back, allowing his rib to blossom from the back of their chest. The rush of soul energy from the warrior filled Zelnith and he immediately understood the power behind those blades. Chelz had channeled their own soul into the weapons, refining them beyond what they were without it. He noted down the possibility for when he had a chance to get some new skill nodes.
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The defenders of the gate were busy fighting off growing numbers as the attackers finally focused on climbing the wall instead of breaking through the sturdy gate. They never ever saw Zelnith and his horde coming as he skewered their commander through the back of the head, the blood rib sticking out of his eye socket.
It didn’t take long for the rest to fall as their numbers dwindled and they became overwhelmed on all sides.
Zelnith hefted the massive braces from the gate and pushed the doors open, allowing the city to be swept by the undead. Any survivors had either made it to the cliff and jumped, or were found and quickly dispatched.
Despite the victory, their numbers had been decimated. Fewer than fifty undead remained. Or would, until their numbers swelled once again from the necromancer’s raising of their fallen foes. Zelnith left them to the plundering and went to meet with Atherus himself.
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“You fool! You should have gone in yourself. The damned city lit the sewer on fire and the fetid gases blew up almost all who went in! We lost over half of our forces immediately due to your impotence.” Atherus screeched.
Zelnith’s visage was ghastly as he moved towards the necromancer. “MY impotence? I told you that it was a waste to send any to the gates. We lost most of them before they even figured out to climb the damn thing. It was MY idea to climb the cliffside with what remaining forces you’d given me. It was MY troops that overwhelmed the attackers under MY command.”
“Why you impudent...” Atherus mattered as he started waggling his fingers, sickly green energy coalescing around the tips. He released the bolts and they dug into Zelnith, burrowing like little worms in the muck.
Zelnith staggered, but came on anyways. “It is YOU that caused such devastation to our troops. Your plan may have seemed good, but how could you not have foreseen a trap in the sewers? You have all the magic to see and discern the truth of the city defenses.”
He raised his rib and began to charge. He felt the necromancer attempt to subjugate him, but the power had weakened so drastically that he hardly slowed.
“How...”
The necromancer took the spiked rib directly to the chest, but he was flung backwards instead of skewered.
“You little shit! You’re lucky my robes have strong enchantments or else you might have actually hurt me!”
Zelnith came on anyways, swinging his weapon repeatedly and mercilessly. The necromancer kept blocking, but his robes seemed to be wearing out, tearing and allowing his flesh to bruise as direct contact was made.
A sudden cascade of the putrid energy flowed from Atherus, circling them both as it grew in size and density. The purpled flesh began returning to its previous pale state, and the robes actually began to knit back together!
The necrotic healing energy was as if hot oil was poured over flesh, parting the magical bindings knit around his body. First, he felt sluggish, as if his body were taking an extra second to heed his commands. Suddenly, he felt his grip slacken on his weapon. His fingers all but disintegrated as the healing magic ate through his body’s magical bonds.
“Give up fool. My whirlwind of healing restores my robe’s enchantments and my constitution, all while tearing off strips of your life force. You can not win!”
Zelnith grinned all the grin he could grin given his lack of facial muscles and skin, and then plunged his sharpened ulna bone through the necromancer’s robes and into his heart. Atherus gaped at his minion and spat blood as he said, “How?” and Zelnith watched his captor’s eyes cloud over. He angled his arm so as to let the man slide gracefully to the ground with a dull thwump sound. A sadness seemed to come over the skeleton’s body posture. He began viciously stabbing his ulna bone into the necromancer’s corpse, shredding it into viscous goo and shredded sinew. The gorey sight of a sharpened forearm bone rapidly slicing into a dead man stood out to one other skeleton. It wasn’t sure why, but it couldn’t figure out why it couldn’t blink.