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Chapter 43 - Ablaze

“She was beautiful, but she was beautiful in the way a forest fire was beautiful: something to be admired from a distance, not up close.” By Terry Pratchett.

Riin's POV

Shadowfell, Somewhere along the northern border, Date Unknown

Week Thirty-three

A few days have passed after we got rescued from the mass of walking dead by Varo and the other guardsmen and made it back to the village. The night was spent without much rest as all able bodies ran around preparing the village and its walls for the coming assault. The ride back to the village had been swift on the shadow horses, not much was said between us as we spent the small time we had resting up. The Shadar-Kai call them nightmares, the horses are meat eaters and hunt in packs in the wild, crazy if you ask me, a freaking meat eating horse…

As the first daylight of Shadowfell’s lighter darkness lights up the world around us, the restless army of the Nighthaunt marched towards the villages gates. We are now surrounded by a swarm of undead that relentlessly tries to get pass the gates and over the walls. The only ones who are left in the village and is able to fight is around fifty guards and fifty young people and that is not counting the normal villagers who are helping with the wall. Fires are lit along the wall and as the undead climb up they are burned by the ready guards and villagers that stand guard. Why do I feel like I have been in this kind of situation before, trapped behind a wall… Oh that right I have! Why me… What did I do to deserve this… I mean I'm a good person, sure I have killed a few people but I mean they had it coming so you can't really blame their downfall on me. So, why do I always end up surrounded by things that want to kill, eat me or both?! Oh well, I will get them for this at some point I swear, the smell of rotting flesh and the constant noise, it's hell! Well, since we have been sitting here doing mostly nothing, I got a good chance to check out the outcome of the fight in the forest.

Message have been compiled into a smaller text. You have slain [Zombie] x50 granting you 2,500 experience and [Skeleton] x40 granting you 2,000 experience. 2 [Ghouls] were also slain by you granting you 400 experience and 1 lone [Zombie Hound] fell you, granting you 200 experience. In this battle, you gained a total of [186] [Shadow Affinity].

The problem with being trapped is that you tend to run low on or even out of essential items like food, and at the current moment no one knows when anyone will come close to the village. But Varo did say that a travelling caravan of some kind of race that he called ‘plane travelers’ are expected in a few weeks so that's a bit of good news. For now the food that is in the village is being given in rations to make it last as long as it possibly can, luckily we don't have to worry about water as the village has its own well. But that just leaves the problem of how the fuck does he think those plane traveler guys are getting inside the village… I mean we are fucking surrounded by a stink bomb known as the living dead, but hey, what do I know.

Oh, did I mention that I almost got fully tackled by Ashko when we returned with Varo, apparently he felt really bad that he had to leave me behind. But as I told him no one would have made it back if not for him and the two other runners and the safety they provided to each other as they ran. I will just keep quiet about the sole reason that I selected two more people to run with him… I only let them run along so that they would work as decoys if they were attacked. They might have been training for a few weeks but they have not been pushed like Ashko and the others.

For the time being I have sent Shagi and Theadis to help carry the heavy wooden planks and iron to reinforce the gates and repair the wall. It will help to build up their base strength while making use of them. Ashko is running messages from and to the different people and workers around the village and along the wall. When he gets a break between the running he is bringing me and the others food and water. I want to build up his endurance and I'm limited within the village so I have to make use of what's available to me, I will break down his body and rebuild it stronger than before.

In the meantime I'm having Ivani receive hand to hand combat training by yours truly. Since the assault on her, I have come to realise that while I did train them all from the start, the base of a female's muscle mass is vastly different from that of a males. Her upper body is much weaker as a base then any male her age, even if that's not counting Ashko in the mix. The problem I found was that as she is being held down the difference in strength became too vast between her and her attacker, if male. Since I can't really remove the gap between the male and female body build, I have decided to teach her how she can get out of a hold done by a much stronger opponent. I hope that this will help her should she ever get attacked again and no one is there to help her or if she is unable to avoid a direct confrontation. While I will focus on the release holds that she will need, I want her to learn choke holds, and if I find a chance I want her to learn how to break the neck vertebrae with both her hands and her legs. So while she might be a fast runner and an amazing archer she is still too weak when it come to close combat, so for now that will be my focus to improve on. Other than that I get to enjoy a beautiful girl lightly dressed and covered in a thin layer of sweat, now there is just something hot about that, if you ask me. So as we train I enjoy the sight of her and her heavy breathing as I pin her down on the ground again and again, feeling her full body under me. At some point I will have to get a taste of her.

Week Thirty-four

The day and night cycle with the undead continues as one is struck down while two more seem to take its place, the only good thing is that no one has been in close battle with them since they have yet to breach the gates or make any real damage to the wall. As the week slowly comes along, it becomes more and more clear that at some point they will breach the gates, we repair it the best we can but they just keep coming in waves.

We created an extra layer to the wall to buy us some more time, using an oil substance that burns for longer periods of time. But like the mindless dolls that they are, they obey their master's call and continue on walking straight into the inferno before them. On top of the high stone wall we stand and watch them as they walk closer and closer to the fire before them. We watch them as they stepped into the wall of flames and as the flames engulfed those who walk within them. We behold the bodies as they burn up yet keep walking. We look on at the bodies of the damned as the fire burns out the last remaining spark of anything resembling life as they fall to their knees becoming only ashes. As endless bodies are set on fire by the raging sea below us and only the blacked wind reminds us of the ones who walked beneath us as their ashes get swept away. More take their place in the ever burning sea, as the flames engulf one and another steps in. Like clockwork they keep on walking ahead into the blazing flames in rows of long gone men and women, with only their shell reming but even that will soon become one with the wind. We look on as the wall we build of fire becomes a living sea of walking bodies set ablaze. Again and again they walk in neat rows, like soldiers walking to their own death and even as everything around them burns up, they keep walking until their legs give away. In a way I found it to be a beautiful sight to behold. The flames seems to move on its own as it licked up against the rotten flesh as they walked into it. The sight of the moving bodies burning brightly below us without a sound passing their lips. An ever moving sea of living flames set in motion by the dead.

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“Why do you smile like that young warrior? Do you know those lost ones?”

Varo's deep voice shakes me back into the moment that we are in. Ah, seems like I was smiling more than I knew. Lost ones? Is he referring to the undead burning to a crisp below?

“Ah, no I don't know them. My apologies for my smile.”

“Death comes to all child, do not pity the fallen for they shall be with loved ones again soon if the lady wills it. Do not apologies for your smile, for the undead, only peace await in death, so smile and laugh for their suffering has come to an end.”

“Ah, I see.”

“To be bound even as they have come to their end, the foul creature that bound them to this fate will feel the queen's wrath soon enough.”

As they burn up below us Varo keeps talking in that slow and calm voice of his as he looks down on the walking flames. Never does he show pity or sadness as the hundreds of undead takes their last steps to their own end. No, he seems more happy if anything. Is he happy that they will not be free to return to their lady? Even if we smile for two different reasons, we stand side by side in silence and watch as they walk their last march before crumpling to their knees and returning to the ground. Truly a beautiful sight this living sea is.

Week Thirty-five

Week three of being hold up in the village, after a week of looking at burning corpses I got bored and decided to do some exercise and have now started the same training as I did the winter before I traveled here. So, I started to do some basic running of four hours combined with fifty push-ups and fifty sit-ups and rope jumping for one hour. I made Ivani do twenty sit-ups and rope jumping with me. Ashko is doing the whole program but with half the push-ups and sit-ups. I have Theadis and Shagi do everything that I'm doing plus weight lifting with the help of iron from the smithy.

The fire burning the undead has died down and only the slightly blacked ground and the taste of burned flesh in the air remains as a tale of what went on. The sound of the flickering flames is no more to be heard in the night. We have run out of oil to pour down and set fire to. So now we are back to sticking spears into the heads and chests of the ones that wander to close. I kinda miss the sound of the fire, I found it smoothing in a way. As they say ‘You never know what you have until it's gone.’ who knew that they had a point.

Week Thirty-six

Four weeks have passed since we got stuck inside the walls of the village and today they breached the western gate or at least they made a hole in it. I must admit that I'm very impressed by the strength of the undead and their constant barrage against the same ‘door’ for weeks at an end. Just slamming themselves against it until they break down like broken dolls with their strings cut and is then eaten by their kindred before they move to do the same thing as their predecessors.

But we have a different problem at our hands, food. We have about a weeks worth left and by the looks of it the undead are not going anywhere.

We have received a fire signal today. Well… I say fire signal but really it was just a burning arrow that was fired high up into the air. According to Varo it is a message that they know we are trapped and that help is coming. When I asked when this help might be arriving he gave a vague answer of ‘soon’ … When the fuck is soon!? You don't tell trapped and hungry people that help will be here ‘soon’! It's like telling a woman in labour that the birth will be over soon, ever seen a eighteen hour labour!? That's not soon for that woman trying to squeeze out a human, that's fucking forever! There is a reason that the brain forgets the amount of pain it was in during a childbirth… Fucking great, now I'm thinking about child labour while surrounded by the overwhelming smell of decomposing flesh… I really need some fresh air.

Week Thirty-seven

Soon turned out to be a few days later, without the flames raging beneath the wall I found rest on top of one of the guard towers and it is from there that I'm watching this whole ordeal take place from above. An older male is suddenly standing in the village centre, but as none of the guards seems to think of him as a threat I came to the conclusion that he is either a knight or a retried one, if they can even retire that is. Varo greets the older man with a slight bow, yeah he is definitely someone high up the food chain, that's for sure. They talk back and forth, while I can't hear what they are saying from here I can see that some sort of problem has arrived, if the elderly man's facial expression of utter shock is anything to go by.

By the time I have made my way down from my spot and head towards the centre where they are standing, I'm joined by Ivani, who is walking a few steps behind me. I guess she will be helpful if they start talking in their own language and I need a translator, as I get within hearing distance Varo turns to greet me.

“Young warrior, you have great timing.”

“Oh?”

“This is Elder Cree of North Rock, the village that lies on the border and safeguards the pass. He will slay the Nighthaunt, with that gone we should be able to handle the undead gathered here.”

Hmm, they need an elder to slay a gargoyle, is it really that strong of a monster?

“I see, will you be able to do so alone?”

The man named Cree looks at me for a long time, his eyes are old yet he doesn't seem weak to me at all, finally he speaks up his voice calm like Varo’s.

“A Nighthaunt is an enemy best fought alone, where it has no one to suck the life from and no one to manipulate. But fear not young warrior I walk with the lady's blessing.”

Okay… I guess that's the best answer I will get as a yes(?) to the being able to handle it alone? But while all this is fine and dandy it does not explain why I ‘have good timing’ at all.

“So… What do you need from me?”

Varo gives me a smile or I think it's a smile or it might be a very sadistic looking smirk, but I hope not.

“You will prepare the young to march out, we shall end this plague that walk on our lady's land. Go now, we fight at dawn!”

A fight? I get to let loose some pent up frustration! Sign me up man! Ah, I'm grinning so hard that my cheeks are starting to hurt.

“We will be ready!”

“Ivani, gather the others at once! Meet me in front of the tents!”

She kneels before the moment her name leaves my lips.

“As you command, it shall be done, my master!”

Ah, just a few more years and I will have my fill of that bouncy body of hers! But for now I will let off some ‘steam’ on the walking punching bags that we are about to be unleashed onto.

Before the tents, a small wooden chair has been place for me, I sit and wait for the rest of the young warriors to gather around. Shagi is standing on my right and Theadis on my left, Ashko is keeping himself half hidden behind Shagi’s larger frame, I wonder if something happened while I was busy with training Ivani? Speaking of the devil, she comes running up to me and kneels before my feet.

“As you have commanded, all the young warriors have been brought before you, my master.”

Ah, the way you let the word ‘master’ pass your lips makes me want to do so many things to you… But for now I have to focus on the job at hand.

Standing up I wave Ivani to the side before speaking the the crowd in front of me.

“Listen up! By dawn we shall cleanse the land of the undead that surrounds us!”

Cheers and a few roars are let loose.

“The Nighthaunt will be dealt with by Elder Cree from North Rock! We will thereafter begin the assault! Am I understood!?”

‘Yes’ and ‘understood’ is yelled from the mass.

“Rest! For when dawn comes we go to war!”