The four hulking armored figures stood in the surf, the lapping waves of high tide coming up to mid-shin on them as the water sluiced by the figures and up the beach before retreating back into the waters of the bay. Two sported the midnight black and deep crimson of the Stygian Wave, one the stark bone white with red edging of the Lich King Armies, and one in the flat gray armor of the Iron Legion. All of the armor was dented, battered, and rent, one of the black armored figures had a gaping hole in the interlocked plates of the torso armor that showed torn flesh exposing black clotted blood, ashen gray flesh, splintered bone, and thick veins throbbing with vile purple.

It took nearly two hours for the tide to come in, the water reaching nearly the knees of the four figures, before it went out far enough that the waves didn't lap over the quartet's feet. All the while a young woman waited with her chin lifted, watching down her nose at the four undead figures, as a young serving man with the chubby features of a eunuch shaded her with an umbrella. While the tide had come in and gone back out she had rolled her eyes at the quartets slow motions, had shifted boredly as the hulking armored beings had intoned slow and steady canticles of faith.

Her frustration and boredom had nearly outweighed her fear of the four figures when they finally turned around. The steel masks they all wore bore rough featured people's visages, death masks of the people encased in the heavy armor.

"You are the leaders of the Forsaken?" The woman asked, her voiced nasal and her tone haughty.

The one in Lich King Army armor, a woman who's armor had fist sized holes that punched through the thick alchemically treated enchanted alloys, curtsied in her armor, the oiled metal making almost no noise despite the noblewoman's expectations.

"We are, Lady duCusalk." The woman said, her voice slightly echoing and almost monotone. "I am..."

"Yes, yes, yes, I'm sure you are important to some. As you know my name, you know the authority I wield." The woman interrupted, her voice impatient. The armored woman nodded, the steel plate over her face that of a rough featured but handsome woman. Unlike traditional death masks, the enchanted alloy of the mask was unpainted and unenameled, just stark shining steel. "I have brought commandments for you and your, ahem, brethren."

Lady duCasalk drew herself up, stepping forward into the wet sand, her exquisitely crafted, electrum inlaid and magic enhanced shoes changing color as the seawater in the sand of the bay lapped forward to touch them.

"The Council of Lords have a task for you and your decaying servants." She stated, her exquisite makeup shimmering as the sunrise touched the powdered gems mixed with the facepaint. "We have allowed you walking corpses to inhabit our fair city since you broke your vows to your liege lords and commanders as well as having refused the call of the Son of the Black Moon. We have given you space to build tombs, have kept the rabble of the common people from bothering you, and allow you to come to the beach or wander the streets as if you are still living, and all of this time we have asked for nothing from you in return."

All four of the hulking undead stood still, unmoving, and the woman felt a small twinge of fear at the fact that cold malevolence rolled off of them. She had no real fear of them, at the ripe old age of twenty-four the Lich King War had ended before her birth and to her was ancient history that no longer mattered among important and powerful people.

Sharava Shelmeck'duNovak had fought in that ferocious war, had been slain on the battlefield over eighty years before, and had been brought back to unlife to serve the master of the Stygian Wave, and had continued to fight until the bitter end of the war. She had commanded the Forsaken Legion outside the very walls of this city, destroying all who tried to despoil the city in those final years of the war and the long years of banditry that had infested the countryside outside the walls. Her sheer will kept her in a state of unlife, despite her abandoning her oaths to the Stygian Wave at the end of the war, and despite her expectations of entering the afterlife once the war was over. Her granite determination to protect those who were in danger from the war she had helped prosecute had made her refuse the Son of the Black Moon, keep the Legion together, and try to hold herself together on the mortal realm long enough to atone for the terrible things she'd done in the name of Lich Kings.

For the last decade the Forsaken Legion had dwelt within the Garden of Remembrance, within the Tombs of the Unfallen, rarely going out of the streets. Many of the Forsaken Legion had fallen into slumber within their tombs, their powerful bodies still resisting corruption and their souls still anchored to their bodies.

The Court of Lords had largely ignored the Legion, content to ignore the powerful undead. The Stygian Wave had breached the gates of the city and destroyed a section of the North Merchant's Quarter, and the dread knights had rebuilt it into a section of tombs and a Garden of Remembrance, as well as based their forays out to protect the worthless (to the Court of Lords) dirt farmers and pig wallowers. While the loss of the tax base bothered the Court of Lords, they were content to leave dread knights to their own devices until the nobles needed something from them.

Which is how Lady du Casalk came to be facing dread knights on a deserted stretch of beach just after dawn, unable to see the long dead faces behind the steel masks, and completely ignorant of just what stood in front of her as she continued speaking.

"We allowed you to settle here after you arrived as no more than steel clad vagrants, armor wearing vagabonds, hobos carrying swords, allowed you to continue to worship your pathetic gods, who could not even keep you alive or protect your homelands. All without asking anything more from you than we would ask of any other armed denizen of our city." She paused for a second, glaring disdainfully at the sigils of gods on the dead members of martial orders that stood before her. "We have one task for you, a task that even someone who's brain has been rotting inside their skull for decades could accomplish. Should you not complete this task by the setting sun, we will destroy that pathetic garden park, tear down your shoddy tombs, burn all of those who refuse to move, and drive the rest out into the wilderness."

Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

The massive undead stared at her for a long moment, and the woman made an exasperated sound before continuing. "We know that you have the skill of arms and strength of brawn to complete this minor task we wish to give you. As a matter of fact you yourself, Thaleshen duVallac, defeated Fraker the Axe and forced him to flee the field due to his injuries."

The huge undead in Stygian Wave armor stared at the woman, going over the memory in his mind. He had indeed managed to breach Fraker's abdominal armor, but it had not been easy, nor had it exactly driven Fraker from the field of battle, unless having Fraker hack his way through the army that opposed him, the command tent of Thaleshen's superiors, the war stables, the supply area, the city wall that Thaleshen was trying to defend, and the city itself. Not so much of a "flee from the field" as a "enraged by pain to destroy everything in sight on the field." The massive undead doubted that the young vain woman in front of him would understand the difference between "fled the field" and "killed everything living in front of him in a blood fueled rampage."

"So the Council has given me the task that you shall accomplish, and I hereby give you the task that the Council desires you to accomplish." She drew herself up even further, tilting her head back until her chin was in the air in her attempt to stare down her nose at the armored figures. She waited a moment then impatience at the silent presence of the undead got to her and she blurted out what she had been hoping they'd ask about. "The Council has determined that you shall slay Fraker the Axe by the end of sundown today, or we shall carry through with our promises of complete and utter destruction of your little band of armored vagabonds."

There was dead silence for a long moment, broken only by the slight creak of the armor as the quartet turned to look at one another. She tapped her foot for a moment, then made another exaggerated exasperated exhale.

"Well?" She snapped.

"You wish us to prosecute a war of steel and strength against Fraker the Axe, the vessel of the Herald of Carnage, He Who Cannot Be Bound?" Sharava asked, her voice trembling slightly.

Lady duCasalk made the mistake of thinking that tremor had more to do with the power of the Council of Lords than anything else and smiled. "Yes. Did all of that armor squeeze all the juice out of your brains? It's a simple request. Kill Fraker duVek."

"And the common people? What of them? What of the small folk who get caught between our armored might and the rage of The Favored Son?" Thalehen asked.

"They are of no moment. Do not concern yourself with what happens to some ill bred chattel." duCasalk said with a dismissive wave of her hand.

"And the city itself? There will be much damage to the city should we raise a mailed fist against the Beloved Younger Brother." Strevak duVon Lon asked.

"You will just be killing Fraker the Axe, do as little damage to the city as possible in the noble and high merchant quarters, but where the commoners squat like animals, the Council cares not." She said.

She wasn't aware of the dark purple energy crackling on the fists and forearms of the gathered undead, the way the runic script across the thick metal plates pulsed with mystical energy, or the way the engraved and inlaid gems set into the thick armor began to glow with an inner light. She thought of it all as mere decoration, signs of vanity, rather than the most magically and technologically advanced armor on the Six Worlds being put into ready mode.

"Why does the Court of Lords wish Fraker the Axe slain?" Sharava asked, her hand clenching into a fist to resist the urge to wrap it around the comfortable worn hilt of her orcish razor sword.

"The Living Lich King has obviously sent him to destroy our fair city, and we have no choice but to defend ourselves, as the authority of the Lich King Council is no longer premiere on the Six Worlds." duCasalk said.

"Why did she send him?" Sharava tried. She'd served in the Stygian Wave and knew that the Living Lich King did not do a single thing, not even pick out a pair of earrings, without a perfectly good reason that did at least six things that carried out her will and desires.

"Perhaps this has to do with your exiling the kobolds from our fair city?" Strevak asked. The massive warrior was from the Empire of Von Lon, and had left his name behind to keep the Lich Kings from punishing his family, taking the surname duVon Lon, meaning 'of Von Lon' in remembrance of the land of his birth, instead. "After all, if you exiled those gentle people, who are the chosen people of the Living Lich King, would you not fear that she would bring retribution down upon you?"

"That has nothing to do with the command you have been giving, you shambling corpses!" duCasalk snapped. "You have been given a command, and you are expected to follow it to the letter."

"Except we swore oaths to protect this city." Sharava said, her voice the grinding of old iron plates. The other three nodded.

"Then follow those oaths and kill Fraker the Axe! Are you all deaf?" the noblewoman screamed.

"The people must be protected, the city must be guarded, it is our duty." Strevak stated, his voice implacable.

"Then we are decided?" Sharava asked.

"We are." The other three stated.

"So you will kill Fraker the Axe?" duCasalk asked. Finally, she would be off this windy beach, relaxing in her manor with a crisp glass of wine and servants to dance for her amusement. She knew the ocean breeze was already chapping her delicate skin and that it would take hour of massaging expensive lotions into her skin to reverse it.

"No." Sharava asked. The massive sword, made of alchemical and magical alloys and strengthened with mystic enhancements, swept out of the scabbard, flashed through the air, met duCasalk's neck with a bright green flesh, and was sheathed as the young woman's body, transformed to ash, collapsed upon itself and stirred in the breeze.

"Go back, tell her masters that the Forsaken Legion will protect this city from all threats, even the Council of Lords." Sharava stated, stepping forward to stir the ashes that had been the young woman with one toe. "Tell them that they are now the enemy of the citizens of this city and will now face the same punishment as all enemies of this city that we have sworn to defend."

The four undead left the beach, leaving the trembling eunuch behind.