The Army of the Undead: Alternate Reality

Book excerpt: Favel's lower half fell away, kicking and thrashing, rolling across the cobblestones, then somehow managed its feet. A black gush of blood poured out of Favel's upper half, which still clung to the soldier, still feasting on the soldier's face. The man still screamed. His knife still plunged into Favel impotently. The soldier who had chopped Favel in half stepped back in horrific incomprehension. The look on his face would have taken tomes to describe. Then he spewed his guts in an explosive convulsion that sprayed over the two struggling men, but neither seemed to notice. At the last moment the soldier's head turned in time to notice the approach of the pair of legs. He swung his sword and chopped down through the hips and separated the two legs, which fell away from one another but continued to struggle on. When he came upon the first combatants, the Necromancers were nowhere to be seen. There was heavy fighting but the men seemed to be slowly overwhelming the Ignacian, fighting in a Line Formation where they could more easily bring their swords and axes into service. The men were steadily falling back, but that was only so that they did not have to walk among the fallen body parts of the enemy, which continued to fight even when cleaved to individual pieces. A legless torso would clamber forward and attempt to climb a man, and would have to be chopped away. When one of their own fell, the men turned and chopped their own comrade to pieces, even if he was not completely dead. The merest scratch by one of the Ignacian was a death sentence that arrived only minutes later, and as gruesome as it might seem to chop apart your own comrades, it was a duty that had to be done. The men continued to fall back, but the Ignacian were taking a heavy toll. The now tireless team pulling the woman's wagon followed them like lost dogs, but the woman and her children leaped out onto the first unwary humans they encountered. It was an amusing game to watch the Ignacian tear into the helpless people. There were many variations of the game. Kill one among a family and watch as the others rush to see what is wrong. Kill the child in the mother's arms and watch laughing as it rips off the breast it was feeding on. They rode into the city, killing and killing as they went, the chain reaction now unstoppable. Moruv nodded uncertainly. Since when did the Warlord make inspections of his land? Since when did he go anywhere without an armed escort? A sizable one at that! Who was the tall stranger with him? Moruv had the strangest sensation while looking at him that his face had wavered and rippled! Ridiculous of course, but after yesterday's events, Moruv was looking at the world with an entirely new viewpoint, one in which previously impossible things had just become the possible. He was sure that nothing could now surprise him, but he was wrong. The Ignacian poured forward over the lip of the trench, the front rows just falling in as their uncoordinated movements tumbled them forward. Some tried to step in, or jump down, but they could not accomplish anything so complicated. They continued to march forward into the opening until they had filled the trench and then their comrades walked over their bodies, into the bristling pikes. When he reached their point of origin, the westernmost end of the Big Wood's Road, and found that the Ignacian element had not yet reached the fortifications which had been erected there, he floated over the unknowing Army and the Sisters arrayed there to defend their breastworks and watched the Ignacian finish closing the short distance to the waiting Army. Lives would certainly be lost this day but Lester needed to see what kind of a defense the flesh and blood soldiers would be able to pose against their undead adversaries. His timing had been nearly perfect and he did not have to wait long. Daghula and the rest of the Necromancers were all alike in that regard- they thought they were too good to bow and grovel before their true Master! Malton was not impeded by such arrogant shortcomings. He knew and understood Sheitan's superiority. When that eventual day came he would grovel happily, in blissful acceptance of his fate, at the Master's feet. The Master would be pleased with him. He would pet him and croon to him as Malton groveled. No. Malton did not fear that eventual day. Not in the least. She was on the field of battle. All around her raged unceasing combat, men and women, even children, battling the undead Ignacian, and every time one of the living fell, mortally wounded, he rose immediately as one of the enemy, to strike down those he had just stood with, his loved ones, his own family. Jana was fighting with her short sword and Casting Wizard's Fire but there was little room in the melee for the use of it without fear of hitting the living. For as far as she could see, in every direction, there was nothing but the heaving bodies of those engaged in mortal combat, then the old woman's eyes seemed to withdraw and Jana reeled away. Cloudless and as bright as any night could hope to be under the brilliance of the billions of stars above, Daghula cast an illusion which made him invisible then drew the great Black Sword which Sheitan himself had given him, buried within the heart of a great volcanic rock which even his spells had been unable to dislodge; he had chipped the rock away by hand to expose the hungry blade, this direct Channel to the Lower Plane and Sheitan himself. He drew it now and felt it quiver in his hand, as if it were a thing alive unto itself, but it was not, it merely conveyed the hunger of its Master. For those who it consumed there could be no salvation, their souls sent directly to the Lower Plane, no matter what life they lived while here. "It was the Wizard Timan! He attacked me in Specter Form!" Nimian snarled. Everything unknown in life became clear after death when the soul's unlimited ability to comprehend was released from its limiting physical bonds. It would also make the torments of Hell that much more acute. "It be." Old Woman said. She had been called Old Woman for so long that she had completely forgotten her given name. She had bounced Hirren, their hot tempered King, on her knees when he was but a babe as she had bounced Hirren's father before him, and his father before him, and even beyond that, though her memory no longer served her well enough to remember just exactly how long she had been alive. The days just continued to pass and she continued to move through them. She was Old Woman. "The Balance," Marea emphasized, "is contingent upon toil and struggle. The future depends on Right and Justice, but Righteousness must come to its own as must Discord and Rebellion. The day will come, eventually, when Discord and Rebellion must finally cease to exist, but that cessation must be brought about by the hand of man. This is our world, and if we wish to keep the Good which is within it, we will have to fight for it. Excerpts; -"You don’t think the war in Parce will reach us here, do you, mum?" Timan asked, not really knowing what he expected, but in no way expecting the reaction she did have. The smile fell from her lips, the joy left her eyes, and clouds of sorrow seemed to cross her countenance. .......... -"Those who came through here last week claimed to be fleeing an Army of the Undead. An Army of the Undead led by a Necromancer they called Daghula Ichorious." "Not led," Marea corrected, "but forced through Evil spells from their very graves to rise and do the Necromancer’s bidding. They do not follow willingly. No one rises from their grave willingly." "You speak of it as if you know of such things!" Timan said, causing his mother to blanch slightly, as if this were a subject she had not wanted raised. Not ever. "Your mother was not always a farmer’s wife and a mother. She was once a very well-known Sorceress of not inconsiderable Power!" Jarod said, a small smile now twisting his lips, and something else was there, as well. A certain deference Timan had never noticed before but now that he had noticed it, realized it had always been there. He had always thought highly of his parent’s relationship, which was of a much more equal nature than some of the other Prairie folk, and now he seemed to understand why and also to have a new respect for his father. It would take a special man to marry a woman who possessed Power enough to overpower him if they should ever come to arguing. Timan was old enough to understand how difficult that would be for most men, but not, apparently, his father. .......... Timan immediately felt the spell coursing through his veins, throbbing like an additional heartbeat, a heartbeat that thrummed in tune with spoken words that held no conscious meaning, beating at his temples, pounding at his temples, and then he was no longer in his own body. He seemed to leap out of it and into the air, faster than he could have ever moved in his physical body, where such rapid acceleration would have ripped him apart at the seams. As he hurtled away he had just enough time to look back over his shoulder (he still seemed to be in his physical form) and watch . . . himself . . . be left far behind. This might be what it would be like to die, except that he would not be able to return after his brief sojourn. "Absolutely." Kenry said, and before Timan knew what was happening he was snatched from his seat and thrown roughly to the ground. Kenry turned back to Marea as Timan scrambled to his feet. "You understand I will not coddle him. I will do him no favors if I coddle him." Marea began to speak quietly under her breath. Had she spoken aloud Jarod still wouldn’t have understood her. She was speaking the Old Tongue. The language of Power which, if the oral histories were correct, could not be translated into any other language, the ancient meanings of the words so long lost in time that their present counterparts could not be discerned. Marea believed, possibly, with several dozen lifetimes available in which to research and experiment, the task could be completed, but the only way to live much beyond the normal span was to trade away your soul to Sheitan, the evil god of the Lower Realm, and if you did that, Sheitan would have demands that precluded using your time for your own purposes. Such Wizards who gave themselves to Sheitan were called Necromancers and through their unholy union with the God of the Lower Realms were able to perform many spells normal Wizards were not, including the ability to raise the dead. "What have you done!" Jarod exclaimed, running down the steps to challenge the man, who flinched back before the now greenly glowing blade and Jarod’s fury. "I’ve done nothing! What mean you, man?" "It’s not him." Marea interjected, coming down to stand beside her husband. "It’s the residue on the blade." The stranger’s eyes snapped down to the blade hanging from his belt. A look that contained both horror and revulsion and a dawning realization of just what this might mean. "I didn’t know! I swear! I cleaned the blade!" He was now nearly hysterical. Children in both the wagons broke out crying and looks of horror spread across the faces of everyone else not crying but old enough or smart enough to understand what this could mean. "It means you have probably carried the spell of the Necromancer with you!" Marea said. "Hurry and remove your scabbard. It must be purified. Quickly now man!" She added as he stood there a moment longer, stupefied. The child was in its crib, where it had been before the attack and where it had been tossed back into after it made its transformation and was no longer palatable to whatever had been eating it. Its left arm had been ripped raggedly away from the shoulder, the right at the elbow, as if two somethings had been in a tug of war with it to obtain it. Its stomach and inner organs were missing, as well as a ragged chunk from its face. Yet it was on its feet and trying to climb the high walls of its crib as if those wounds were of no more than a passing inconvenience. They were, however, enough of an inconvenience that even with its Evil strength, it could not free itself. It smiled up at Timan angelically.