Chapter 3
Tears of Blood
Zabalas Dimonia stood outside in the courtyard where a newly constructed castle had been erected. It was appropriately named the Bastion of Skulls, as it was fashioned from thousands of them, making up its entire exterior. It was surrounded by the expansive courtyard within a small village, aptly known as Gallows’ Hill, situated in the southeastern portion of Wothlondia known as the Stonehill Region. The settlement had been famous for centuries past as a burial ground for anyone that claimed the uneven landscape of Stonehill as their home. Even those outside the region were welcome to bury their dead here, and many did so.
There were very few who lived in the village proper, aside from the undertakers, embalmers and gravediggers who found plenty of work there. Wagons and caravans would come by the thousands from all over Wothlondia to send their loved ones to their final resting place.
The center of the settlement once accommodated statues of the Gods of Order and the people believed that they watched over their deceased kin, who thus remained forever under their vigilant eye. At one time, despite the morbidity of death associated with it, it was a beautiful and serene place. It provided the bereaved relatives with a sense of finality that could be appreciated.
Now, however, the Bastion of Skulls stood in its place. No more were there architecturally beautiful mausoleums, crypts or even the exquisitely carved statues that once adorned the courtyard—there was only the enormous skull-embodied fortress in their stead.
The site never looked as ghastly as it did now.
Zabalas stood amidst all the bodies that lay here, uncared for and ignored for the better part of a half century. These were all victims of Ashenclaw and her scorching drakes some fifty years ago. Most of the bodies were burned and disfigured, but oddly whole and preserved, not turned to dust as they should have been. There was what could only be described as a supernatural aura surrounding Gallows’ Hill. It was a palpable feeling of dark magic derived from the purest of evils.
The dark warlord was enveloped from head to toe in armor as black as pitch, accented with a mixture of spikes, horns and prongs. He gestured and began a series of chants, speaking in tongues not native to this realm. The entire landscape for as far as the eye could see began to glow yellow, then red, and eventually there came a flash of light so brilliant and white that it would have blinded anyone looking upon it. The discharge burst upward and bathed the lifeless bodies in a glow of unparalleled malevolence. Zabalas’s actions began to awaken these strangely preserved bodies and breathe ‘undeath’ into them.
One by one the corpses stood, clumsily swaying to and fro, wavering on their feet as if they were not accustomed to or familiar with these extraneous husks they now inhabited. The corrupt quality in the air animated the corpses, making them profane mockeries of what they had once been in life. Now they were hideous abominations.
Zabalas gazed upon his minions, rotting flesh dripping from their bones and tattered remains of once-whole clothing hanging from their limbs and torsos. These undead things carried a disease within that made the blood boil. They were the stuff of nightmares and had appeared only a very few times in the past on this plane. They were a gift to Zabalas from his master.
“It is Summer’s Fade… as I once remembered it. The weather is changing, sending an appropriate chill on the air that shall carry my minions with it across the land.” Zabalas stood in the gloom. The sun had recently departed and darkness descended across the face of Wothlondia. Evenfall was upon them and it seemed a fitting time to unleash the undead scourge upon the surface.
“Let us see what the people think when these living corpses—these Blood Rot Zombies—rise up and tear the flesh from their frail and weak bodies!” Zabalas grimaced, throwing his head back and glaring into the darkened sky above, seeming to threaten the very Gods of Order. “The Races of Order will soon come to feel my hand as it slowly tightens around their throat, but by the time they sense its grip, it will be too late.”
Zabalas slowly removed his sword from its scabbard. He held the blade aloft as a series of purple and pink flames danced around its sharp edges, licking at the tip. “And you will lead them!”
Zabalas pointed his blade in the direction of a creature with a headdress upon its rotting head that appeared quite out of place. From beneath its once regal robes, the thing was emitting a tangible contagion which did not appear to have any effect on the heavily armored warlord. The aberration that stood before him was endowed with magical aptitude and arcane knowledge that rivaled that of even some of the ancient elven mages of Acillia.
“You will launch destruction upon the surface folk and tear the Races of Order asunder with your magic,” continued Zabalas as he circled the wretched creature, sizing him up with a scrutinizing eye. “Yes… you will do just fine,” he concluded in satisfaction. “They think that the queen of the scorching drakes was a fearful sight!?”
He then strode forward a few steps, walking amidst his undead host that measured easily in the thousands. “Of course it is,” Zabalas mused, almost in contention with his last words, then he quickly spoke again, stifling a laugh. “A dragon queen the size of a mountain that can turn stone into slag in seconds is indeed a force to be reckoned with. But that will be compared to the games of mere infants when they see what I have in store for them.”
He replaced the now-flameless sword back into its scabbard. “Go my kindred children. Go and see what kind of chaos you can bestow upon them all!”
Zabalas turned on his heel, heading towards the Bastion of Skulls, as the multitude of diseased undead creatures walked, ran and crawled out of the courtyard and across the rocky ground of Stonehill, heading in all directions. As he continued toward the castle, a fiendish creature that lurked in the shadows of a nearby crypt gave an approving smile within the gloom. Zabalas turned and gave pause to regard the demonic presence that stood there, seeming to absorb all light that passed nearby. The only thing he could see of the other-worldly creature was the glowing red eyes that penetrated that cold, lightless space.
As Zabalas neared the castle, he heard the growing sound of deranged laughter that followed him into his stronghold, seeming to somehow grow louder even after the voluminous door shut behind him.
The logs that comprised the palisade around the village of Chansuk were tied tightly together and sharpened at the tips. Scarr made his way through the eastern entrance and around the stockade. He entered at an even pace with a hunting party in tow and an elk draped across his broad shoulders.
“We have food now for many weeks,” declared the muscular man as he dropped the dead elk before him. Many of the tribesmen and women gathered around as horns sounded to signal the return of the hunters.
Scarr’s blonde hair and unshaven face were specked with blood and dirt, yet he gave no indication of weariness. The elk was easily the largest that any of the villagers had ever seen, probably close to three hundred pounds. As the rest of the small group of hunters returned, each and every villager in attendance put up a deafening cheer. They roared in satisfaction at the bounty and for the safe return of their kin.
Huuna, Scarr’s wife, ran to her husband and threw her arms around his massive body. She kissed him, scraping her delicate skin on his rough, unshaven face.
A blessing by the head shaman of the village, Syth, was to follow shortly thereafter. He traditionally bestowed good fortune on the animals and thanked the spirits for their gift of continued sustenance that blessed the barbarians of Chansuk.
It was early morn on the seventh day of The Chilling and the snow would soon come to greet Chansuk and the southern portion of Wothlondia. Sometimes the Stonehill Region would receive only the bitter chill of the north instead, but most winters it was the recipient of a generous amount of snowfall. It was not nearly as much as that suffered in the north, by comparison, but it would certainly hinder the barbarians in their hunting.
Adding to their misfortune was the fact that the deer and elk usually became nutritious victuals for the frost worgs that would inevitably arrive with the cold. Most winters for the barbarians were filled with the eating of berries, grains and fruits stored from a long, bountiful harvest. The land to the north was plentiful in that regard—unlike the wetlands that they called home. Occasionally, hunting parties were successful enough to tide them over with wolf, bear or even the bountiful and tasty red meat of frost worgs themselves.
Scarr slapped Rothnarr hard on his back, knocking the huge barbarian forward somewhat. He was a strapping young lad who reminded Scarr of himself when he was younger, even more so than his own son, Magreth. Rothnarr was the son of Kernagos, hailing from the neighboring town of Greymoors to the northwest, and was a powerful specimen of a man, even now in his youth.
Rothnarr demonstrated thick, golden-blonde hair, and wore a long beard tied into several, separate braids. His eyes were the green only seen in emeralds—all features of Scarr too—and similar to those of Saeunn, his daughter (minus the beard).
Greymoors was further from the waters that bordered Chansuk and was on dryer ground. The barbarians that lived there were altogether displaced from the moist and swampy surfaces where the River Thrice emptied into the Somber Sea. The Greymoors favored combat on horseback and were friendly to the Chansuk tribes and their people, sharing many things in common, other than terrain, and often worked together. This was especially so when Ashenclaw and the scorching drakes had rained death and fire, burning the ground of their beloved Wothlondia. Chansuk united with the Greymoors barbarians that year to down several of the beasts with spears, swords and axes. They lost many of their kin over the course of those attacks, but managed to slay the drakes. The tribes stripped the wyrms of their scales, teeth and talons, keeping whatever they could salvage as trophies.
Further reinforcing the alliance of the two tribes, Scarr often took Rothnarr and several of the Greymoors kin on seasonal hunting trips to provide both villages with quality meat to store for the winter. Along with the traditional salting or curing of the flesh, the shamans could help keep it from spoiling with magic. Sometimes it might even freeze once exposed to the icy chill of the winter months.
Kernagos, the chieftain of the Greymoors, was a bear of a man. He exhibited darker hair than his son, but the two men were definitely born of the same ilk. Both were nearly identical in size, the only difference being that the elder was slightly bigger around the waist and shoulders and brandished additional tattoos.
Magreth, son of Scarr, had features akin to his mother with darker hair and light brown eyes, but with a finely muscled body like his father. He was devoid of the enormous amount of tattoos found upon his father’s body, for Scarr’s battle prowess and achievements in combat were too many to count. That dissimilarity would likely change over time, though.
Rothnarr felt at home amongst the Chansuk barbarians, and especially so with Saeunn. She was in love with him and he with her, Scarr knew, as did anyone who saw the two of them together. It was no secret. Scarr did not understand why his only daughter would hide her feelings from him, but he did not question her motives. He prepared himself for the eventual revelation of the relationship and the likely joining of the two tribes if the couple were to be wed.
“Come, we have much work to do,” claimed Scarr loudly to Magreth and Rothnarr. The young Greymoors barbarian was staring toward the center hut in the villages, Scarr and Huuna’s home, where Saeunn could be seen standing in the doorway.
Saeunn chanced a surreptitious glance and noted the gaze of Rothnarr upon her. If anyone was closer, they would have seen her blush—an uncommon event for the stoic barbarian woman. Her bright blonde hair cascaded down her back and over her shoulders, a few braids intermingled with the loose strands. A mesh of tightly ringed mail draped loosely over her breasts, shoulders and back, and a series of leather straps covered her loins and hung freely to mid-thigh. Much of her well-built arms, mid-section and legs were exposed, despite the weather, and were tanned from the summer months.
Barbarians wore light armors in order to maneuver quickly on the battlefield. Also, when they fought, they were oft times overtaken by a bloodlust that flowed hot through them, heating their blood as it fueled their fight.
Scarr and the others moved further into the village toward the huts of the shamans. As they arrived at the designated area, Shaman Syth stepped from his hut. Tokens, trinkets, fetishes and feathers hung from both his skin and clothing. He remained silent and observed the barbarians as they went about their tasks, untying the elk from the huge branches upon which they carried them, two per bough.
Suddenly, a scout on horseback appeared in the distance. As he neared, he clumsily dismounted, stumbling to the ground. Scarr recognized the boy as one of Helzak’s children—Halton. Helzak was a fine bowman in Chansuk, and had the eyes of an eagle. Normally Helzak would be either hunting with Scarr or helping as a scout, but this day had him bedridden with sickness. That was why the boy was in his place. The young man approached with a frightened and disturbed look upon his pale, young face. His eyes were wide and he was pointing to the north as he attempted to gather himself.
“Halton, what is it?” asked Scarr as he tried to steady the boy.
“The… Greymoors,” managed the boy, gasping for air, the heat from his breath seen clearly against the cold of the morning air. “A horde…,” he continued, finally slowing his breathing. “A horde of… something… is coming this way!”
Scarr grabbed the boy by his comparably smaller arms and pulled him closer. “A horde heading where?!” demanded the barbarian chieftain.
“They are heading northwest. Most of them, anyway,” cried the young man. Scarr could feel the boy shaking and fidgeting in his grip, truly frightened by whatever it was that he had witnessed.
“How far are they now, boy?” asked Scarr, plans formulating in his mind.
“Many miles still,” Halton answered, motionless in the iron grip of Scarr’s powerful hands. “I was able to spot them a great distance away, but—“
“But, what?” insisted Scarr, pulling the boy even closer. They were almost nose to nose.
“They seem to be… random in their movements. Like they are not organized. They have no leader, I think.”
Scarr pushed Halton back and released his vise-like grip, admiring the boy’s obvious talent for perception and observance of details. Just like Helzak, thought Scarr. The boy fell backward, but caught his balance and stood again, staring at the commanding barbarian before him who tugged at his braided beard thoughtfully.
“Alert the village,” Scarr ordered, specifically directing this command to Magreth. He nodded and ran off in a dead sprint. Then he turned to Rothnarr and added, “You’d better alert your people, too, if your father doesn’t know already.”
“Aye,” Rothnarr agreed and strode away with purpose.
Within moments, a crowd began to form around their leader, a wall of muscled barbarians who stood intently awaiting the words of their great chieftain.
“Barbarians of Chansuk,” Scarr began, but then hesitated, seeing his daughter amongst the group, her hair now braided and tied back in a pony tail. “We are facing an enemy unknown to us. But, whoever they are, we will send them running back in the direction from whence they came!”
A chorus of cheers went up with that declaration, a deafening roar from the hundreds of barbarians gathered. That roar slowly turned into a chant of “Chan-suk, Chan-suk!”
On it went for several moments until Scarr withdrew his twin axes, his signature weapons, and crossed them one over the other in front of his chest. He then climbed atop one of the huts in two powerful strides. As he reached the roof, he peered over the palisade and maneuvered the axes up and over his head, crossing them once more. The clamor became deafening as Scarr watched Rothnarr ride to the northwest on horseback.
“For The Champion!” Scarr roared, looking skyward and st
anding like a god on the roof, his blonde hair falling over his finely muscled shoulders. The barbarians responded to those last words and rushed toward the northern gate. Scarr gave them a head start and then leaped down to join them.
Saeunn became one with the horde as it rushed out of the village. With weapons in hand and an intense battle lust etched upon their faces, the barbarians of Chansuk raced to intercept the unknown threat. Saeunn was with her brother, Magreth, who wielded a huge battle axe. He led and she followed, her own greatsword drawn and at the ready. Saeunn’s weapon had been crafted by a village blacksmith only a few years ago and was gifted to her by her father when she reached adulthood after her sixteenth name-day. Needless to say, it was special to her. She had drawn blood with the weapon before, but only on a few occasions.
Saeunn knew deep down that her father accepted her as a true barbarian—naturally gifted and uninhibited when it came to the kill. She did what she must on the field of battle and did not let guilt or trepidation rule her actions. She knew that Scarr witnessed and understood this from the first time she ever brandished her weapon. But, he never voiced it. He would never speak of it, especially to her mother.
Once Huuna discovered that Saeunn was accompanying the counter attack, she would not be pleased… not one bit. She had visions of her daughter marrying a warrior and bearing him children, just as she had done, and had voiced that opinion often. That life choice did not sit well with Saeunn, the barbarian. And Scarr knew this, too. His daughter had always shown the fire of a warrior behind her eyes, though he attempted to discourage her many times for Huuna’s sake.
Women were not often sent into the vanguard, but there were more than a few of the so-called ‘fairer sex’ who could make quite an impression in that very arena.
Women of Chansuk were no ordinary women.
Just then, Saeunn noticed Scarr as he scanned the crowd and ran at a slow pace, allowing those behind to catch up. His gaze fell on his daughter. He stared at her initially with a discouraging look meant to dissuade her from the coming battle. It was a futile effort. He therefore ran on, passing her and looking back, nodding this time. It was a silent approval that he would never voice as he did not want to explicitly encourage her. She interpreted that as a sign meant to signify his unspoken blessing to her.
She was once told that, when he had a bit too much to drink, Scarr whispered admissions of knowing that The Champion had gifted him with not one, but two warriors from the seed of his heritage.
With that thought in the forefront of her mind, Saeunn took to a full sprint, catching up to her father and leaving her brother behind. Her green eyes lit up with a renewed sparkle and her braided blonde hair bounced from side to side as she ran, almost as if it too were inspired with a new vitality.
Then she saw them coming.
The barbarian horde collectively slowed for a split second as they beheld the living atrocities in greater detail. The things were bloated, rotting creatures. Skin adorned with sores and boils dripped from their bones. They were a truly horrid sight and an obvious blight upon the whole of Wothlondia.
The first of the wretched creatures hit their lines. After the initial revulsion of having seen the things up close, the barbarians responded in kind.
Saeunn and Scarr were amongst those in the second wave of attackers. Saeunn strayed from her group, purposefully giving ground as she wanted to swing her weapon wide. She rushed to meet a group of the creatures head on, barbarian fury pumping in her veins. Her first wide swing cleaved one in two across the stomach, barely slowing on the flesh or what was inside it. She recognized this abomination to be what the village shamans told her was a zombie, an undead corpse fueled with evil life gifted by the demon lords of Pandemonium. But this thing looked different from the creatures in the shaman’s tales. It was full of deadly disease and oozed a vile corruption from its tattered skin.
A second and third pestilent wretch appeared and moved toward her. Part of her could not help but be impressed by the speed at which the bulbous creatures scrambled. She slashed her sword across in a downward, right to left motion, all but severing the head of the nearest zombie. It hung loosely by a strand of flesh, and then landed with a squishy sound upon the damp ground, followed by its body.
The third zombie slammed into Saeunn, knocking her back a few steps and probing for flesh to bite with its keen-edged teeth. It continued, following its impetus, which the woman had anticipated for she fought on instinct. Saeunn rolled backwards with the creature’s momentum, extending her sword straight out while holding it tightly and near the top of the hilt, halfway up the weapon’s blade, giving her better control of its weight.
The undead wretch skewered itself upon her sword. But instead of recoiling, the zombie continued to push toward her, further impaling itself and refusing to yield, wanting only to reach her flesh. Saeunn pulled her blade free, exchanging the placement of the weapon with her own left foot, which she used to keep the thing at bay. She shoved out with tremendous force, thrusting the creature rearward to gain space and using that inertia to once more propel herself into a backward roll. She sprung to her feet before the thing could move toward her and spun in a complete circle. Her greatsword followed the arc and slashed through the zombie’s neck with significant force, causing its head to fly away, rolling toward another fray not far from her. She paused to witness the battle for a split second as she was given a brief reprieve.
Saeunn heard the slashing of swords and axes biting into zombie flesh. She listened to the screams of dying barbarians and heard the invigorating roar of battle cries that instilled a morale boost to the servants of The Champion.
Saeunn followed the bounding skull of the zombie and watched as another of them charged, tripping over it and stumbling forward. It had the misfortune of sprawling into the devastating dance of the pair of axes belonging to her father, Scarr. He had managed to stay close to his daughter in the skirmish and kept an eye on her. He grunted a few times as he swung those axes in a rhythmic pattern, continuing to chop the zombie to pieces in a way that made it look as though he were dancing and not fighting. Not once did any of the creatures advance past his defenses and never did the man’s weapons cease their hypnotic pattern of destruction.
Out of nowhere, Saeunn felt her flesh ignite from within and her green eyes widened in shock as she sensed the sudden onrush of heat. It seemed like her blood was beginning to simmer, as if had been sitting on a fire for hours, and she became unnerved. This sensation was unlike the frenzy that she normally experienced in the field of battle and was instead something of a supernatural nature.
Once the burning sensation ceased, it was followed quickly by a genuine fatigue that washed over her. She noticed now that several of her tribe was suffering these same effects. Scarr continued to cut through the zombies one by one as if they were merely dissolving under the onslaught of his attack sequence. If he was affected by the same thing as she was, Saeunn could not tell.
Shamans of the Chansuk tribe made their way quickly to those suffering the effects of the contagion, chanting to spirits through the din of the battle and asking for healing energies. For the most part, they did their best. Many of the barbarians stood again and renewed their attacks, smashing or slicing into the zombies, reducing them to pieces of rotting flesh.
Saeunn felt the healing of the spirits and was suddenly unburdened by the fatigue. The attack continued and the barbarians’ losses were very few. Both Scarr and Saeunn noticed that Magreth, leading a smaller pocket of barbarians further north, was stumbling and looking fatigued. He was most certainly affected by the same ailment that she had been. The two barbarians pressed on as they were greatly thinning the horde of zombies.
Saeunn jammed her sword through the head of a zombie lying on the floor that she’d placed there with a leap and shoulder check of her own. She held a boot on its head and yanked her sword free, looking around at the waning battle. The tide had turn
ed in the favor of the barbarians. It appeared they were victorious. Scarr approached his daughter and summoned Shaman Syth to his side.
“The unending tide of undead creatures appears to have an end after all,” Scarr smiled. “You fought well, my daughter, as I knew you would. Syth, tend to my son.” He pointed to the north where Magreth knelt in obvious discomfort.
“I have already asked the spirits to bless him, my lord,” responded Syth.
“Do it again!” Scarr ordered tersely as they advanced through the battlefield, finally making their way to Magreth.
“Aye, my lord. These things are called Blood Rotters,” revealed Syth as he shook a fetish. He followed that up with another incantation spoken in a dialect inherent to the shamans. “Blood Rot Zombies,” he continued. “I have spoken to the spirits and history talks of creatures such as these that make the blood boil. They are born of the purest evil. Their disease is direct and very… deadly.”
Shaman Syth said nothing more and continued to do what he could for Magreth, apparently diminishing the effects of the contagion for the most part as the young barbarian stood in a state of balance. Meanwhile, Scarr and Saeunn aided some of the wounded, helping them to their feet to bring them to one of the shamans for healing aid.
Suddenly, a shout rang out in the distance as a barbarian clearly vocalized: “More coming from the east!”
In the distance formed a second swarm of the Blood Rot Zombies, much larger than the first, heading their way.
It seems this is the day that I meet with The Champion after all, thought Saeunn grimly, as she tightened the grip on the hilt of her greatsword.
Scarr spoke once more, rallying his tribesmen against all odds. “For Chansuk! For The Champion!” he shouted. The barbarians steeled their resolve with each word. They knew that they faced an insurmountable task and that their outlook was bleak. Yet, those that stood smirked at one another, accepting the challenges of battle and grasping their weapons, moving with fervor toward the enemy.
Before any of the barbarians could advance to meet this second wave of Blood Rotters, a confident shaman began to move forward. He strode through the crowd, pushing to the front of the horde of barbarians to stand and face this new wave of dense undeath rushing toward their ranks.
A hush fell over the barbarians as Shaman Syth began speaking a ritualistic incantation as the Blood Rotters closed in. At the completion of the spell, a surging mass of fire erupted from his outstretched hands, engulfing the nearest half dozen of the oncoming creatures in magical flames. Those flames jumped from one creature to the next, and so on. The conflagration seemed to hiss and protest as it consumed the undead, sickly bodies. Soon after, several dozen of the Blood Rotters were ablaze with mystical fires.
The barbarians paused and winced at the sheer intensity of the torrent of flames. They watched as the fire changed color, leaping from zombie to zombie. They continued to gaze upon the phenomenon as the magical flames devoured the nearest ones, reducing their bodies to dust before they could slam into the wall of barbarian flesh behind the shaman.
This was only a brief respite, however, as there was another pack of zombies behind this one and it advanced on the barbarians, emotionless and tirelessly. Scarr feared that the hesitation in the fighting might spark doubt to creep across his people so he roared encouragement: “For Chansuk!”
The warriors turned to their leader, seeing a fierce determination on his face and a look in his eyes that conveyed courage beyond compare.
“For The Champion!” Scarr added for good measure as the barbarians began to rally around his words. The warriors began chanting the mantra in deafening repetition. Scarr felt the frenzy building within as they recited the words in unison.
Then he heard what he thought to be thunder in the distance. It began as a soft, low rumble, and then grew in volume. Now it sounded like rolling claps of thunder over the plains of Wothlondia, promising a coming storm. But suddenly he perceived words through the din. From behind them came a mass of riders, galloping and crying out similar encouragement. The words were distinct now and the compelling chants rang out. “For The Champion!” was followed by “For Greymoors!”
The Greymoors barbarians had arrived.
Kernagos and Rothnarr were at their command, leading the attack on horseback as was their way, and they raced into the throng of undead horrors.
And so, the fight began anew.
Magreth joined the counter attack with the Greymoors on the rear flank of the zombies. They circled to the north in an attempt to drive them south toward the Chansuk tribe. He caught up to his battle brother, Rothnarr, who had jumped to the ground, preferring to fight beside Magreth.
Although the barbarians themselves did not have the magical fire of their shamans, they did carry torches with one end soaked in oil. Magreth, with as cunning a mind as his father, immediately withdrew his torch. As he ran past a Blood Rotter corpse still engulfed in flames, he plunged it into the conflagration to ignite it.
“Fight with fire, barbarians!” called Magreth, holding his battleaxe aloft in one hand and the blazing torch in the other. “They will burn and die quickly! They cannot survive it!”
“Nor can they survive without their heads, brother,” observed Rothnarr with a grin upon his face, glancing at his sword. Magreth looked at his battle-brother and gave a hearty laugh.
The barbarians nearest him followed suit and began to ignite their own torches. They charged into the masses of the Blood Rotter army, torches and blades at the ready. They moved as one, cutting and burning their way through the zombie horde. The undead were single-minded, though, ignoring the threat of the fire and looking only for flesh upon which to feast.
“It is good to see you again, brother,” Rothnarr smiled at Magreth as he sliced a zombie’s head off. Magreth then shoved his torch into its body, setting it ablaze.
“And you, brother,” Magreth replied, butting his brow onto Rothnarr’s own.
”Perhaps you will yet achieve the mark of heroes upon your arms!” teased the blonde barbarian, motioning to a specific tattoo on his own right shoulder.
“It is good to have you fighting at my side again, too,” answered Magreth with a grunt, ignoring the remark and kicking a zombie in the chest, knocking it to the ground and burning it just as quickly.
He turned too late to see another of the Blood Rotters closing on him. Rothnarr cleaved its legs in two at the knees just before it reached Magreth, and its upper torso fell flat onto the ground with a thud. The son of Scarr took that opportunity to sever the thing’s head and then set all the limbs ablaze by pouring a flagon of oil upon its body parts. The stench of the burning, contaminated bodies was enough to make the barbarians reflexively gag and cough while pressing on with their assault. The entire area was lighting up in the sunset, bathing the battlefield in artificial light. Barbarians on foot and on horseback continued their assault on the Blood Rotters as the sun continued to sink into the clouds to the west.
The two barbarians moved in a semi-circular fashion, herding the Blood Rotters and forcing them toward the rest of the force and away from the villages of Chansuk and Greymoors alike. They were weary. Magreth realized that they’d been fighting for the better part of the day.
As they dropped the last of the straggling creatures, Magreth saw something appear on his flank. From out of the dense brush came a sudden bolt of lightning. It struck Rothnarr, lifting him off the ground and sending him into the air, some twenty or so feet. A second bolt jumped from Rothnarr and landed upon Magreth’s flesh, shocking him and knocking him to the ground. It seemed to merely send a tingle through Magreth while Rothnarr received the worst of it.
Magreth watched as Rothnarr landed hard on the wet ground and fell limp, his weapon lost to him. He was unmoving, which a handful of the Blood Rotters noted and so began to move toward him. Magreth returned his attention from Rothnarr t
o the hideous creature responsible for the bolt of lightning. It looked similar to the Blood Rotters, but seemed different. A headdress rested unconventionally atop its head and a noble’s robe was draped over its bloated bulk. That clearly defined it as something altogether greater than the others—and certainly more deadly, judging by the arcane power it possessed.
Magreth watched as it cocked its head at him in a manner that suggested a base cunning or intelligence. The thing moved its hands wildly and spoke something incoherent. Magreth began to sprint away. The undead mage unleashed another bolt of lightning meant for him. He instinctively ran in a zigzag pattern so the bolt landed directly to his right, singeing some of the dark hair along his arm as it scorched the ground next to him.
He looked back to see what had happened to Rothnarr, but was out of sight of his friend. He was in dire straits himself as the zombie mage shuffled quickly after him, forcing him away from Rothnarr. Magreth attempted to move back toward his fallen battle-brother, but a third lightning bolt forced him still further away as he had to tuck his body tightly into a roll, finding cover behind a nearby thicket of trees. He was not sure how much longer he would be able to continue this game of cat and mouse, he thought, worried that Rothnarr was already dead.
Saeunn slashed her way through the zombie infestation with Scarr at her side, his twin axes working in a tireless sequence. The Greymoors and their fearless leader, Kernagos, had stormed across the plains on horseback, making it to the battle as the second force of Blood Rotters, double the size of the first, had attacked. The tide of battle was turning in their favor once more.
Saeunn went to engage another of the Blood Rotters, allowing its bulging frame to penetrate her personal space. It lunged forward in the hopes of tearing into her flesh. Saeunn simply ducked the lower half of her body, bending at the waist and then standing upright to flip the thing over her. The zombie landed with a loud thump on the wetland and Saeunn repositioned herself to be perpendicular to it as, for a heartbeat, it lay prone. That was all the time she needed. With a powerful downward strike, she severed the head of the Blood Rot zombie, her anger finally at its peak.
She turned to see her father produce a torch and use it to set the next fallen Blood Rotter ablaze. The rest of the barbarians were doing likewise, recognizing the success of the Greymoors employing this measure to the north.
Saeunn paused a moment to take in the sight. Blazing zombies now littered the battlefield, causing a bright fire to be seen from miles away. Some of the magical flames of the shamans remained lit, even when the undead Blood Rotters fell upon patches of damp swampland. Barbarians fought savagely against the supernatural foe and the whole scene suddenly seemed unreal to her.
“Burn the damned things!” Saeunn heard suddenly, pulling her focus back to reality at the unmistakable sound of her father rallying the troops in his raspy, gruff voice. His blonde hair and multi-braided beard was splashed with blood, as was his entire body. His bare chest, though covered with blonde hair and heavily tattooed, was also bathed in zombie gore. He swung his axe and torch combination to great effect. Scarr was an inspiration to the barbarians and to her as well.
“For Chansuk! For Wothlondia!” she heard once more over the sound of the battle.
Shaman Syth appeared next to her suddenly and put a hand on her shoulder, turning her to face him. He held a rod of some kind in his hand which he used to restrain her sword hand lest he be cut down. He knew that surprising a barbarian warrior, even an unseasoned one, was never a good idea.
“Wha—“ Saeunn managed, staring into the mystical eyes of the shaman that seemed distant. Where had he come from?
“Hold out your weapon,” Syth instructed her. She did as she was told and watched as he removed a strange vial from his belt sack, uncorked the container and rubbed phosphorescent oil along the blade. It held fast somehow, not spilling to the ground at all, not even one drop.
The older shaman then spoke an incantation quickly and waved a hand over the blade, causing it to burst into flames. Saeunn nearly dropped her sword, but the shaman had placed his hand over hers to ensure that she did not. Magical fire began surging and then shrinking as if in rhythm with the sound of her own heartbeat.
“Go now, child. Smite your enemies and send them back to the plane of Pandemonium from whence they came.”
Saeunn immediately ran off to intercept two Blood Rotters heading toward them. Syth fell back into the crowd of barbarians, issuing mystical aid and spiritualistic healing to those suffering the effects of the blood rotting ailment.
Saeunn and her now-flaming blade began cutting down zombie after bloated zombie. Each strike set one more ablaze, and they burned, eventually crumbling to dust. She somehow ignored the effects of their terrible disease, pushing past the fatigue-like symptoms of not only the blood rot, but also of her own tiring muscles. Her innate fury counteracted the weariness somewhat, but there was an irrefutable ache in her limbs.
The main force of barbarians had driven much of the undead infestation to the south. Saeunn pushed further east, cutting down the seemingly limitless army of Blood Rotters, until she saw a limp body lying on the ground a hundred or so paces away. In the dwindling sunlight, she could not make out who it was. She noticed that five of the zombies were advancing on the prone barbarian, anticipating a feast of fallen flesh. She turned toward them and, as she did, she caught a flash of lightning in her peripheral vision to her right and behind her, though no storm presented this day.
Saeunn began to run as fast as her legs could move her, sprinting with the speed of a wildcat and closing in on the undead pack. She arrived just as the Blood Rotters converged on the barbarian, encircling him and bending low to feed on the easy prey, but Saeunn would have none of it.
It was only when she got to within striking distance that one of the zombies noticed her, but it was too late. Her flaming greatsword came down, splitting it in two from head to groin with a downward stroke and setting magical fire to the thing’s disease-ridden flesh as the blade passed through.
It was then she caught a glimpse of the fallen barbarian. It was a man, blonde and bearded, with the physique of a bear and whose body appeared scorched from something. Recognition flooded her thoughts and horror beset her features.
Rothnarr.
Realizing that her lover was the intended victim of the zombies sent a deluge of anger through her. The barbarian woman was incensed.
Another two zombies turned their attention toward her. She swung her flaming sword in a wide arc with such force that she cleaved the first one in two. Its burning upper half flew to the left and the lower section collapsed to the soggy ground. She used the momentum of that wide swing to continue the circular motion, reversing her grip on the weapon. She brought the pommel of her tremendous greatsword to bear directly into the face of the next zombie. Blood, tattered flesh and bone sprayed out as she caved in the contaminated creature’s nose. She ignored the carnage and allowed the Blood Rotter to hit the ground, then drove a booted heel into the creature’s neck, crushing it into the soil.
She heard another approaching from behind and dropped the flaming weapon on the prone body of the dying zombie in order to set it ablaze. She simultaneously thrust a swift back kick into the oncoming zombie, the fourth of the five wretches.
She turned to face the last of them as it leaned over the limp body of Rothnarr and began tearing flesh from his right arm. The fourth blood rotter rose from the ground behind her and rushed at her once more. She grabbed her weapon from the burning zombie, ignoring the flames as they licked at her hand and arm. She spun one hundred and eighty degrees, severing the zombie’s head from its body. The suddenly flaming skull went flying some distance in the opposite direction.
She turned to face the last one again, not even turning to watch the body of the decapitated zombie as it fell into the swampy ground behind her, and advanced with anger unparalleled toward it as it chewed on the flesh o
f her beloved. Standing over the zombie, she seized it firmly by the nape of the neck and pulled it up, tossing it away from Rothnarr’s unmoving form. The Blood Rotter landed unceremoniously onto its back, still tearing into a piece of flesh it held.
Saeunn suppressed all logic or tactics at this point and allowed complete and utter instinct to take over. She grasped her greatsword, flames dancing up and down its shaft, and drove the blade down into the zombie’s skull with all the might she had in her. The zombie’s head splattered into chunks of flaming, unrecognizable pieces as she continued to hack down onto the remains over and over again. After her senses returned, she dropped the flaming greatsword, fighting through the pain in her heart and went to Rothnarr.
“Syth!” she cried out. “Help him, please!”
Saeunn did not want to look down upon the man she loved… did not want to witness him in this weakened and helpless state. The battle still raged on to the west and to the south of her, but she did not take heed.
An owl landed in front of her and transformed right before her eyes into a man. It was Syth, she finally recognized, wiping her eyes that streamed tears born of heartache and frustration. The shaman began immediately uttering prayers and summoning spirits to access the regenerative plane and to begin the ritual of healing. Blood pooled onto the ground next to Rothnarr’s mighty right arm, mixing with the wet ground and making it seem as if it were some morbid and surrealistic design in the damp soil. Syth continued to invoke healing rituals over the fallen barbarian, repeating the words over and again. Saeunn noted that Syth also treated another area of his body, and that Rothnarr had been the victim of something that caused a severe scorch mark on his left shoulder and back, too.
After several moments, Syth succeeded in stopping the blood flow from the wound almost completely. He checked the man’s pulse, lifting his huge left arm and then listening to his heartbeat. He did not need to tell Saeunn that Rothnarr’s breathing was shallow at best.
A flash of lightning again caught her peripheral vision and she turned to see someone running their way, emerging from a tree line to the south. Her first instinct was to funnel the danger, whatever it was, away from her lover.
A barbarian man, dark of hair and fleet of foot, was racing toward her. She sprinted toward him and recognized him to be Magreth.
“Away from here!” Saeunn shouted. He heard the plea and nodded. The barbarian man zigzagged away from her, pointing to a rather large and old stump of a tree just as he tucked and rolled, dodging a bolt of lightning. She nodded in response to him and began to hurry toward it, propelled by the task of protecting her beloved and aiding her brother.
Saeunn saw the thing chasing Magreth—the source of the lightning bolt. It was moving at an extraordinarily rapid pace that seemed to defy logic. It was a Blood Rotter for sure, but distinct from the others. It wore a kind of headdress and was robed in majestic-looking regalia that suggested it as being of a higher station than the rest—especially since it was hurling bolts of lightning at her brother.
Saeunn rounded the remains of the once mighty tree and waited for her brother to pass. The stump was choked with profuse undergrowth and shrubbery sprouting wildly around it. Saeunn knelt. The magical flames that had once engulfed her greatsword were all but gone now, flickering out bit by bit. Magreth, still running crazily past a thicket of shrubbery and through the thick vegetation, rounded the tree stump tightly. The Blood Rotter mage followed, trying to keep up with the faster barbarian.
As the creature presented itself, Saeunn leaped out from behind the stump, slashing her greatsword mightily as it ran past, gashing a gaping wound in its right side. The blow was struck with such force that she ended her lethal strike by landing on her left knee as the thing fell behind her atop the wetland surface.
As the undead mage lay there, a liquid oozed from its wound, gushing out onto the sodden ground and steaming immediately as it hit it. Amidst the hissing sound of the thing’s blood hitting the damp soil, Saeunn heard movement as suddenly the creature stood behind her. She could not believe her ears. She slowly rose from her bent knee and turned in time to see the Blood Rot mage finishing a spell.
How? Saeunn was lost in her own disbelief at the turn of events. She immediately expected to feel the jarring heat of a lightning bolt sear into her own flesh and braced for the inevitable.
She did not see an electrical discharge at all this time, but instead saw a flash of something else in the fading sunlight. She spun to witness what appeared to be a cone-shaped discharge of a black and green substance. It seemed to spew forth from the cavity caused by her blade and it gushed toward her.
At that instant she was sent sprawling to the ground as her brother slammed into her, knocking her down. The discharge of nauseating ooze hit Magreth square on his right flank and back as he leaped in front of his sister. He could not stifle a scream as the acidic blast stripped layers of his skin away, revealing muscle, tendon and bone. It happened so quickly that Saeunn could do nothing but watch helplessly as it ate away pockets of his flesh.
Saeunn’s eyes widened, displaying a sequence of horror and then anger—first one and then the other. She stood and charged the thing before it could do any more harm. Her greatsword slashed in multiple circular left-to-right motions which systematically took chunks of clothing and flesh with them. The creature stumbled back with each cyclical rotation of her blade. Her steel hacked at the undead mage like a machine, falling in line and pressing forward each time it moved backward. More of the acidic stuff flew from it, landing on Saeunn’s mail and leather and even upon her own flesh too, but she did not feel it. She felt only the anger burning within her; the fury and bloodlust that fueled her with the indomitable spirit and strength to down any foe.
When she was finished, the remains of the undead enemy were scattered about and Saeunn stood, spots of burning acid on her flesh. But she did not care. She stood over her vanquished foe until she felt the strong grip of a hand clamp down on her right shoulder.
Scarr, covered in blood and gore, stared into the eyes of his daughter and pulled her close.
“This is exactly what I meant for you to avoid,” he said in as endearing a tone as he could gather under the circumstances.
“Magreth… is he—“
“Do not look,” Scarr instructed, but she could not stay her eyes. Her brother, or what remained of him, lay on the floor in a heap, almost an eroded version of the man he was. Only parts of him remained as both the disease and contagion of the Blood Rotters’ infection ate away at him.
“It is best to burn all the bodies and any others who die this night, my lord,” Syth whispered to Scarr. The barbarian chieftain nodded.
“Are you injured, my lord?” Syth asked.
“No,” Scarr answered.
“None of this?” Syth gestured to the blood and guts and fleshy sinew that covered the barbarians skin and blonde hair. “None of this is your own?”
Scarr stared hard at the shaman and walked away. Saeunn remained distraught, holding her brother and realizing that through all of the fighting that had occurred, her father had not suffered a scratch. She could not help but feel considerable admiration and disbelief as she watched him address the gathered tribes.
“We must gather the bodies of the dead and place them on a pyre this night,” he called out to the weary barbarians. “They died a heroes’ death and deserve this burial. So says The Champion!”
With those words, the barbarians moved to collect bodies and tinder. Within the hour, all of the bodies were gathered and burned.
Members from both the Greymoors and Chansuk tribes covered Magreth in skins and took what was left of him toward Chansuk. Scarr turned to regard his daughter, who was on her knees in the mud weeping, and went to her. He threw his massive arms around her and squeezed her tight, pulling her to her feet.
“We must go, the battle is done,” he told her. She did not respond, but merely stood, staring blankly into the horizon with tea
rs pouring down her face. Several of the Chansuk women approached to help her.
“And Rothnarr?” she sobbed.
“Needs more attention, my child,” Syth chimed softly. “To be a true barbarian is to forsake all pain and loss and to understand that you may die at any time. You must accept that. There is no greater accomplishment than to die on the field of battle.”
Saeunn heard the words and allowed them to sink in as she walked.
The barbarians carried their wounded brethren on their backs or on horseback the few miles more to Chansuk’s gates. They were told that those who did not die outright from the Blood Rot disease would likely become zombies themselves. They all understood and collectively agreed to watch over their friends and loved ones closely.
The two barbarian tribes had fought thousands of zombies, fought for the better part of ten hours without stopping and lost hundreds of their own. Many barbarians more would be lost to the Blood Rot contagion. More still would succumb to zombification. It was all necessary in the arena of war.
The battle was won.
Saeunn sat still, tears streaming down her face and a profound throbbing in her heart that was beyond compare. She had wept for countless hours and felt there should be no more tears left to cry, yet still they came, unbidden and unending. The shaman’s words still echoed in her mind.
The village elder continued his ritual, painting the tattoos on her arm that would symbolize her great loss, as he did for each and every barbarian that attained some extraordinary feat, or had a story to tell. Each marking on her body denoted a memorable event that held an important meaning. The tattoos were personal representations of symbolic events, as well as inter-cultural achievements that were forever inscribed upon the body of a barbarian.
After the painting ritual, the shaman would perform the ceremony that would make them permanent on her arm, never to be removed. This was customary practice.
Many barbarians from both the Greymoors and the Chansuk tribes were being marked today for battle accomplishments and, more importantly, to represent friends and family that were lost to them. This was especially real to Saeunn, for not only had she lost one of her siblings with the heroic and untimely death of her brother, but she too had lost the love of her life. Both Magreth and Rothnarr were dead—slain by the foul Blood Rotter things. Never would she be the same, either in love or in war, for she had learned many lessons this day.
The barbarians would halt the further spreading of the Blood Rot plague amongst their tribes in the Stonehill region and stem the spreading of the contagion within their own ranks. But at what cost? Again, Saeunn heard the words of Syth in her mind and again, she tried to steel her emotions against the loss.
This was the beginning of her journey, during which there was much bloodshed to come. Saeunn continued to mull this over in her head as she clenched her fists so tight that the tips of her fingernails penetrated the skin of both her palms, drawing blood. A trickle of it ran down the inside of either hand and down onto her forearm, but she was numb to the pain. Try as she might, she could only focus on the sense of loss within, very palpable and unwavering in its dominance of her emotions.
The shaman continued his ritual, the vital fluid going unnoticed. Saeunn’s mind was elsewhere. Both her own blood and the words of the shaman became distant and then departed altogether, for Saeunn had turned her emotions inward, suppressing them. She took a deep breath, pushed away the pain and gritted her teeth against it all.
She now understood what it meant to be a barbarian.