It was moonlight by the time the Throne of the Dead reached the thick ironwood forest of Rinn’Caile. The forest was so thick that the stars and moon god’s light had been blotted out by the canopies. The way was lit by a meagre light; it was all Mithlas could manage to cast. Mithlas’ stomach had begun to growl incessantly and the hunger had gnawed from within his bloated stomach like nothing he had ever experienced. His boredom was the only thing reminding him how hungry was.
The only thing that could distract him was sleep, but each time he let himself pass into the false-death the light would fade out and he would be impolitely jolted back to the world of the living after his throne had crashed blindly into a tree. After the twelfth time, he yawned and groggily cast the spell of light. After repeating his command, the Throne of the Dead walked again. That was the thing with the undead. They never got tired or hungry. It was a mystery that had yet to be solved even by the most curious of necromancers. Whether it was the act of being fueled by magic alone or something else entirely one really knew what kept the dead going. Regardless, it was really handy and at that moment, Mithlas wasn’t too concerned about that.
“Gaaaah! I’m starving! Hurry up, godsdamnit!” Mithlas complained for the hundredth time. “I should have had dinner AGES ago! Do you want your king to waste away?! Do you want me to STARVE?!”
Deep down the monks did. Oh how they desired it! Of course, they were not allowed to express themselves nor abandon the slug on their backs. All of them prayed that their master would keep misdirecting them for long enough until he starved to death. But the question hung in their heads. Could a Slyth’Taynt die from starvation? They had never seen one before, even in their long existence. Surely, even these slugs could die, right? Alas, they were forced to quicken their pace and endure their master’s complaints in this deep forest.
They were too far from their destination. Dar’Gehon was miles away beyond the thick of the forest. It was beyond the hills and plains beyond that. They must have gotten lost amidst their mishap with their master sleeping as the path had disappeared. It was astonishing how Mithlas had not noticed but when you’re one as sleep deprived and hungry as him, you’d be hard-pressed not to lose your way. Whilst the monks searched around, scuttling to find the path again, they saw the trail up ahead.
Then, the light began to flicker and fade again, until they were engulfed in dark once more. One of the monks snagged his leg on what felt to be a large branch. Legs began to tangle in a tripping mess of limbs. There was then a scream, then a thud and a crash of leaves. Mithlas felt his body planted face down on wet humus and leaves. Some of it had entered his mouth. He sat up, spitting out nature’s filth from his mouth - which was a struggle now, for his lips and face managed to trap some of it in the thick, gluey slime covering him. There was still the faint taste of dirt in his tongue… and it was appetising. No. That couldn’t be right. He spat out what he could of the taste and in the midst of doing so he heard his stomach rumble loudly. It was then that he realised that he was no longer sitting on his throne; he was in the dark, sitting on the ground like some kind of animal.
“Worms?! Where the hell are you? Get over here!”
He heard groaning close to him, followed by the crunching, squelching steps of bare, bony feet until he heard another thud. More loud moaning followed. This repeated until Mithlas grew too annoyed to tolerate it anymore.
“Godsdamnit, must I do EVERYTHING myself?! Loith’Reatha an Lithrod!”
A tiny light hovered over him. He could hardly see beyond a centimetre beyond himself but it was enough to catch the monks’ attention. Out of annoyance, he waved his arms around, looking all about him.
“Over here, you imbeciles!”
He heard the scuttling get closer and then he saw the familiar outline of his throne crawl forward into the light and lower itself to kneel for him. Without hesitation, he collapsed onto his seat.
“I swear, you do that one more time I will…” his repeated tirade -which he had forgotten he had repeated earlier- was interrupted by the violent growl of his stomach.
The pain of hunger had grown so uncomfortably immense that he could scoop up the forest floor and eat it all if he wanted to. But he didn’t want to do that. At least, that’s what he would have liked to believe. He shook off these strange thoughts and began to command the undead once more. They resumed their nightly walk with Mithlas unperturbed by the pains and exhaustion burdening his body. He needed sustenance. That came first before sleep - for the pains of hunger needed to be addressed urgently.
Not long after they had resumed their walk, Mithlas faintly scented something… delicious. It reminded him of Dragon Forge Eggs, a delicacy from a far away land - the ones he had were duck eggs fermented in a traditional spiced brine and smoked with not-so-traditional ironwood. Whether it was the delirium of hunger and exhaustion or the urges brought on by his body, he decided to follow the scent.
“Nevermind Dar’Gehon. Follow that scent!”
The undead tried sniffing around and followed scents completely unrelated to the one he wanted to follow.
“Stop, you idiots! We’re getting further away. Can’t you smell those eggs? Fermented ones? Heavily smoked…”
He continued to describe that scent. This confused the undead further which infuriated their master. Not having anymore of their nonsense, he relented and guided his throne by making them follow his little light. The scent got stronger as they wove through the trees faster and faster. Mithlas was practically drooling - even though Dragon Forge Eggs weren’t something he had been fond of before, but he was hungry enough to eat just about anything. The light was dying and exhaustion was taking hold once again until the throne came to a stop. The smell was overpowering. So overpowering that the undead shuddered and tried to cover their own and each other’s nose-holes. Illuminated by that tiny light was the hind leg with dark, matted fur.
“Let me down,” Mithlas stammered.
The Slyth’Taynt slid off and scrambled forward. He wondered if this was some kind of fresh kill left behind in the forest - though, he knew this: fresh kill would never smell so exotic, let alone eggy. He moved the light closer to the dead thing - his throne edged closer, not wanting to leave the fading light. He revealed a bloated corpse of an Iron Wolf. The iron plating of its skull and spiked spine was peeling off, revealing numerous maggots that wriggled around inside the exposed flesh. The sight should have disgusted him. It should have but…
“No… No no no no. There’s no way I’m going to eat that!”
But it smelled so good. His body hungered for the rotten thing so much that it overpowered all reason and sensibility. Closer and closer, he edged forward till his gaping mouth was a millimetre away from the taut, round flesh of the dead wolf. In that moment, he learned something important about Slyth’Taynt. They needed dead, rotting things. They thrived on it. They craved it. Despite all his willpower, despite his pride and ego, despite all his insistence that he was still an elf -a noble Beolhil elf no less- it wasn’t enough. The monks that made up his throne all shuddered at what they had witnessed and they cursed the fact that they could still feel sick yet they could no longer retch. Of everything they had seen in their previous lives, this was amongst some of the most traumatic and disturbing things they had ever witnessed. Nothing, except for marrowless iron bones and iron plating, was left of the wolf.
Mithlas sobbed and then belched and sobbed some more.
☽༺𓆩𖤐𓆪༻☾
The rest of the journey was spent in dead silence. The small guiding light had strengthened somewhat but not by much; Mithlas was still exhausted but he didn’t sleep a wink. The monks could hardly blame him; they would have fared similarly if they still required sleep. As they edged towards the end of the forest path, the dark blue of the first dawn had poked out between the leaves of the canopy, filling the land with its sombre hues. When the trees had receded into an overgrown valley, that groggy blue had mingled with the smoky grey of the rolling fog.
The moist cold air was uncomfortably pleasant to Mithlas skin and lungs. His eyes could hardly stay open now and the fog ahead seemed so thick that even his pathetic excuse for a light spell wasn’t going to help. Despite not desiring rest, Mithlas could ignore his tiredness no longer. He commanded his Throne of Dead to find a suitable spot to camp. They stopped and went as Mithlas kept complaining. Either a spot was too open, too dry or too wet. Eventually they settled upon a raised bit of land, overgrown with wild hedge-growths, long dew-tipped grasses and sparse trees. The priests let their load roll off of them and they were allowed to disassemble into a more comfortable standing position, wherein they stretched, cracked and shook off their stiffness to not much success. They were to stand guard around their king, armed with branches and the spells that they had committed to memory before their strange slumber.
Mithlas had crawled under a space under where a log and a few large rocks had rested upon each other and sunk into the earth, leaving enough space for the Slyth’Taynt to fit most of his body, save for his small slimy tail - it was only when he felt a breeze blowing against it that he realised that he had one. The space smelt of mildew and the musky-sweet scent of earth and fallen leaves. He shivered, not because he was cold - his body loved the cold and that exactly was part of the problem. He was disconcerted by how much change he had undergone and there was nothing else he feared right now than getting to love this horrid form. Thinking about it had made him lose energy so he fell right asleep.
In his dreams, Mithlas saw the light receding from view. He was cold, a deathly kind of cold, but it was pleasant to him as warmth had been once to him. He recoiled from it. He wanted to leave the shadows, so he waded through them with his new heavy legs. When he came close to the light, he could make out figures dancing around a hill. A roaring bonfire kept the shadows out and the festivities in. A little closer now, he could see that they were elves but they wore the same kind of imperfect patchwork of leathers and cloth that the Dwine and Kligane don themselves in. He edged towards the warmth, a bothersome heat that made him sweat more slime from his pores. As he emerged into the light, the dancers stopped and stared in utter horror. They pinched their noses and squealed, staggering backward. Some came forward, waving torches at him and screaming what sounded like profanities in a primitive tongue. The light stung. It dried his skin.
Mithlas opened his eyes. His tail end had been baking out in the sun. He pulled it inward into the damp and tried smearing some slime on his poor tail to soothe it. The attempt somewhat worked. A slight sting still lingered and his tail was discoloured, but he was better off than before. He trembled as he stared outside - the warmth of the sun had covered the land outside completely, leaving nary a shadow or shade for him to take shelter under. Thankfully, he remembered that he had a group of undead waiting outside for him.
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“Worms! Shield me from the sun! I need you all right NOW!”
The undead gathered around the space he had sheltered in. Immediately, they wrapped their bodies together in an attempt to build a shade shelter around him. Unfortunately, they were too few and too bony to produce sufficient enough shade. The leaves above them were too young, too small to improve their little shelter.
“Great. Just great. What am I going to do now?”
He slammed one foot against the soil wall of his little room and felt something sharp jab him.
“OW! WHAT IN THE NAME OF-?!”
When he shifted his body away, he saw something glowing and white protrude from the soil. Manoeuvring his body around with great effort, he shifted his position so that his head could closely examine the thing more clearly. The thing appeared to be shaped like a bone. A clean one, despite being surrounded by soil, yet, roots had begun to sprout from them. This was none other than an elvish bone. As luck would have it, Mithlas put two and two together and realised that he had stumbled upon a Cot-Hill. Despite the seemingly innocuous name, such a term was used by necromancers for old burial mounds built in the old days when the Beohil and the Lehelit lived in small sidhe villages. Generations of dead would be buried here - which wasn’t a lot given that the elves had exceptionally long lives and a tumultuous history which forced them to move every few generations. There must have been a substantial amount of undead buried in here, untouched for centuries. A smile grew on Mithlas’ thin lips. He spoke the words to raise the dead.
A great surge of energy filled him and the area surrounding him. For a split second, he could see his very own magic reaching into the underworld, yanking those sleeping souls and stuffing their shrieking selves back into their remains that glowed from within the hill. That much power made him feel so amazing. It was nothing like he had ever achieved before. He wanted more. He was so giddy that he began to laugh aloud to himself. The vision faded and he felt a great quaking from opposite him. Soil began to bury him and muffle his screams.
“Get… me… out!” he cried before the soil fully enveloped him.
Some of the soil had fell into his mouth when he was buried. He had made the mistake of trying to spit the soil out, only for more to enter as expected. Between choking to death and ingesting the soil, naturally he swallowed it all down - that’s to say, it was the only natural option for his body - and to his dismay, the taste was beginning to grow on him. It almost reminded him of the common root vegetables that he grew up with or a strong green tea in a clumpy form - richly earthy, as expected of soil. Eating strange things once again aside, the cramped environment was making him uncomfortably comfortable again and he shifted around in his grave with shallow breaths, hoping that his thralls had heard him earlier. First he was turned into a Slyth’Taynt, then that whole incident in the forest, now he had been buried alive. Suffice to say, he wasn’t happy in the slightest about his predicament. Still, he had done something spectacular so his day wasn’t entirely ruined to warrant another streak in his list of things that have gone poorly for him.
Not a minute longer, the earth above him began to shift. The darkness broke away and his face was exposed under a cool shade. Blinking the remnants of soil away, he found himself staring up at skeletons, all sprouting roots and small trees from the heads or backs; the elves of this very Cothill! Suddenly, they yanked him out quite awkwardly and roughly. Mithlas coughed and wheezed, too glad about being unburied to admonish the newly revived undead for their rough handling of their king. Thankfully he was sheltered from the sun by the shade of their trees.
It really was spectacular that he managed to revive undead of this calibre. Reviving the desiccated monks of an ancient god was one thing, but to revive elves whose bones had sprouted sacred trees that should have protected them from such magic was another thing. None had quite achieved this feat, other than the Lich King himself. The skeletons twitched and their bones creaked as if trying to fight against their stillness. A fear had settled on their bones like no other experienced in life. Like the monks around them, they could only wait for their master’s next command.
“What excellent thinking on my part! Bone trees! I want you to provide me with shade at all times during the morning. You shall become a useful fixture for my Throne of the Dead,” He pointed out a bunch of undead at random, “...you, you and you, assemble my throne this instant!”
At once the undead obeyed. His throne had expanded into a large chariot, assembled by bone and desiccated flesh and trees and bushes. It appeared like a moving portion of forest, moved around by skeletal hands and feet. The free hands tended to Mithlas’ every need, massaging his sore spots sustained during his journey and entertaining him with a bit of gesture theatre in which these hands told old folklore through the gestures and manipulations of their hands. The rest unbound to the throne were a mix of monks and formidable tree skeletons that moved surprisingly fast for their lack of flesh and their lumber heft. Mithlas could truly call this an army of undead, his numbers bolstered from a meagre twenty five monks to fifty undead. Still, he was unsatisfied. It wasn’t just that he desired more undead, but he didn’t want to turn up back at the Lich King’s Sect Hideout looking and smelling like a steaming mound of fermented turds. Worst of all, after all of that effort of resurrecting those Cothill skeletons, he was starting to feel rather hungry; and no, he was not keen on feasting on another disgusting thing!
Their route had changed and Mithlas had his undead travel at a quicker pace. He had them keep an eye out for any houses. Not simple peasant hovels. No, he needed a mansion and he wouldn’t settle for any less. There was bound to be a holiday estate in this neck of the woods, even if it belonged to a Dwine. Even a Dwine mansion would be sufficient. Luckily enough, he didn’t have to wait very long. The lumbering undead had passed out through the hills and into a smaller wood until they stumbled upon some tracks.
“Gods, not another forest. This better lead somewhere.”
The group followed the tracks into the forest and their search had not been in vain. The tracks led to a path of leaf-shaped stones and that path led to a clearing. There was an earthen-coloured building walled off by rose hedges and small trees evenly spaced from each other in a zig-zagging pattern. The mansion itself was made of tortoise-limestone for its walls and climbing vines clung along its sides like a green coat of leaves. It had darkened windows and a single spire about below the height of the treeline. The mansion itself seemed to want to blend in with the forest, but it was so perfectly groomed that it failed in its attempts to do just that; it was trying too hard and failing. This is just what Mithlas needed.
“Excellent,” Mithlas licked his lips, “Now we march.”
The undead carried him straight through the front gate. No guards were there to stop them so the walking Cothill elves simply broke through the wooden hedge-gate with a swing of their wooden clubs-for-arms. With the gate shattered to smithereens, the Throne of the Dead marched onward to the darkwood door of the mansion. Two guards drunkedly staggered out of the building in good spirits and immediately sobered up at the sight of the army of undead at their doorstep. One remained frozen, looking to the older guard. The older one, a round, red-faced woman, reached out for her sword with a unsteady hand before finding its hilt and unsheathing it. She pointed it toward the army, finding a solid stance.
“Halt!” she hiccuped, “Stop right where you are!”
Mithlas gave her a questioning look before laughing hysterically, “You can’t be serious.”
“Have you any idea whose property you’re trespassing on? Be off with you before you get yourself into serious trouble!”
Mithlas yawned, “Who? Honestly, I could care less about some rich old Kilgane. You short lived types couldn’t begin to comprehend even a fraction of a Lehelit’s wealth.”
“I won’t ask again, slug.”
Mithlas’ eye twitched at the word.
“I am no slug,” he sat up straight, “and you’d best get that through your thick, underdeveloped skull, Kligane or else you’ll be answering to me for the rest of your undead life.”
The older guard gave her partner a grin, “You wanted to be a paladin, right boy? Well, get ready because this is your first real fight.”
“B-but there’s so many of them, ma’am.”
“Phshhhft… This is enough. It’s miniscule compared to the Lich King’s armies.”
“Miniscule? MINISCULE?!” Mithlas blubbered, “My army is greater than that so-called Lich King’s forces! Worms! Kill them! I want them grovelling at my feet!”
The Throne of the Dead disassembled. The first wave of Cothill skeletons charged forward. The older guard stood her ground next to the younger one; he had only just then started to unsheathe his sword but he fumbled it. The overgrown skeletons had already closed in. Their arms raised to crush the guards like mere beetles. The older guard raised her head.
Blinding light swiped through the first wave. The skeletons froze before their club-arms could meet their mark. Then, there came a creaking sound. The top halves of their bodies toppled backwards.
“Timber!” shouted the guard with a hiccup.
Mithlas yelped when he saw the first of his newly summoned undead fall. Their top halves fell upon the second wave behind them, burying monks and smaller skeletons under thick logs. He had sorely underestimated his opponents, or rather, the single guard. Her sword glowed with light and it seemed that there was a constant spotlight or a halo around her; she was a paladin. A retired paladin.
“Godsdamnit! I just raised you from the dead! Pick yourselves up and kill that drunk old frump!”
Much to the paladin’s surprise, the halved skeletons were still trying to pick themselves back up. Still, that hadn’t been enough to shake her resolve. With a smile, she kept fighting back against the undead with her less-experienced partner. The younger guard struck a monk right between their ribs, but his sword got stuck, tangled with the string of the monk’s robes and jewellery. He did not anticipate the moving tree-skeleton moving up toward his exposed flank. The older guard saw her partner struggling and pushed off the skeletons and monks stuck on her sword. Without touching the undead, she swung her blade and a radiating slash flew through the stuck monk and the incoming skeleton, causing their bones to loosen and fall apart.
“Stop playing around, boy! This isn’t sword practice!”
The younger guard straightened up and did his best to concentrate harder. With each wave, she felled them all, but they just kept building themselves back up. That’s when she began crushing their bones under her boot.
“Must I do everything for these useless worms?” Mithlas huffed.
He drew upon his power and shouted out a spell typically used for repairing broken bones - his prior knowledge studying as a healer mage was always handy. Completely shattered, unmoving undead reassembled and began walking again. Seeing this, the retired paladin set her sights upon Mithlas. The Slyth’Taynt almost jumped out of his skin when he saw that bloodthirsty look on her face.
‘She’s absolutely insane,’ he thought, ‘I need to deal with her fast!’
He focused all his efforts on fixing up his army as rapidly as he could. In precious few seconds, skeletons and desiccated corpses reassembled. They clawed and punched and struck out at the woman, but she kept guarding and sidestepping their attacks as she charged toward Mithlas. She swung, sending a flying slash toward him. If it weren’t for a Cothill skeleton, bumping her slightly, Mithlas would have been dead. The slash barely touched the top of his head, causing Mithlas to shriek and duck late. Furious now, Mithlas sped up his spell. The guard countered one heavy swing from a skeleton but she didn’t see one newly assembled monk strike out toward her. His bony knuckles met her jaw, knocking her completely off kilter. That was the opportunity all the undead needed. She did her best to defend against their attacks, but one more hit to the abdomen by a skeleton’s club arm was too heavy of a blow for her old body to handle. She was knocked to the side. Before the undead could descend upon her, the younger guard tried to fight off the few monks.
“Run Colin! Get out of here!” she urged.
The boy froze, “But what about you? The mansion?”
“Don’t be stupid boy, go now!”
Seeing the many undead rush toward him, he froze again, until he heard the older guard mutter a chant. Suddenly, he felt an overwhelming cowardice come over him. His legs sprang to flee and he sped off faster than a stallion through the forest. Too fast for the undead to pursue him, all the undead focused on the former paladin. The woman’s resolve crumbled. The undead all descended upon her and it was over in a few seconds.
Mithlas smiled smugly as he looked over her body. Something freshly dead would be easy to revive and fix up. With the right spells, she opened her pale eyes.
“Welcome to my army, paladin,” Mithlas laughed. “Now, I wonder what I should call you…”
“Dame… Gnatta…”
“Hmm… Fine. I’ll let you keep your name. Well then, Dame Gnat, show me to your pantry. Your king is famished.”