Unveiled Shadows: Tales of a Lich

Chapter 16 - Witches & Wizards

Dunstan gazed upon his friend and brother in arms, sprawled on the fetid ground, a ghastly, bloodied stump where his sword hand had once been. "Oi, Mutius... why... why must you always put yourself through such peril on my account..." he murmured, tearing a strip of cloth from his cloak and beginning to wrap it around the mutilated limb. "He's as pale as milk, this can't be good." With a deep breath, Dunstan focused his will, silently commanding what was left of his undead minions. A hulking corpse, once a man, and another, slightly less imposing but no less macabre, lifted Mutius between them, their decayed flesh and exposed bones a chilling sight. They draped him over the back of a creature that had once been a mule, now a skeletal beast, its hollow eyes and bony frame bearing its burden with the same steadfastness it had shown in life.

"There must be something I can do." But it dawned on him that all of these newfound abilities, curses, powers—whatever one might call them—could not mend life, only to restore it to a vague, twisted version of what it once was.

Dunstan began walking, his minions trailing not far behind. Together, they traversed the festering landscape, a group of misfits with no place in polite society navigating through decay. Consumed by worry for his friend, he stared at the ground, paying no attention to what lay before him. His army stopped, and Dunstan snapped out of his thoughts, looking up.

Before him stood a figure that appeared to be a man, the back of its hood visible, the hood, or perhaps the head beneath it, seemed abnormally large, but Dunstan couldn't discern which. As the stranger turned around, it revealed a horrific visage of festering fungus, akin to the rats and the forest floor. Its eyes had been hollowed out, resembling two reddish-brown mushroom caps, giving the creature an aura of sickly peril.

With a sudden movement, the creature raised one arm and seemed to glide across the ground, coming straight for Dunstan. The impact was swift and brutal, knocking the wind out of him as he was hurled back through the air, landing with a splash in a putrid swamp puddle, the stench and filth enveloping him. He was wiping the brown liquid from his eyes when the monster loomed over him, its towering presence casting a shadow of dread.

it whispered in a deadly hymn, its voice a chilling blend of menace and invitation. "Aonaigh linn!" The words echoed Dunstan's mind, a sinister call to join their ranks.

Without a moment's hesitation, driven by pure, impulsive instinct, Dunstan issued a kill command. The hulking duo, his undead minions, responded with an agility and speed that belied their decayed forms. They moved with a lumbering grace, closing in on the infected stranger with a monstrous determination. Their heavy footsteps thudded against the putrid mud, each step echoing with ominous intent. Dunstan leaped to his feet, his eyes fixed on the sorcerer as his minions closed in from behind.

The first, a towering behemoth of rotting flesh and exposed bone, raised its massive, decomposed arm and brought it down with a crushing force, aiming to shatter the sorcerer's fungal skull. The second, slightly smaller but no less fearsome, lunged forward, its gnarled fingers extended like claws, seeking to tear through the stranger's mycotic flesh, each movement a grotesque ballet of destruction.

Again, the festering sorcerer summoned forth his dark command, 'Aonaigh linn...' His voice was now a chilling echo of something no longer human. The corpses encircling him convulsed violently as mushrooms, akin to those adorning the sorcerer, erupted from their decaying skin, enveloping them in a horrific fungal embrace. Their thoughts and feelings were wiped away from Dunstan's mind as quickly as a harsh wind extinguishes a candle's flame.

"What has become of them?" he pondered silently. "Obey your master!" he shouted, as the corpses that once would have laid down their lives for him now gazed upon him with a haunting intensity. Their eyes locked onto his, and they began to slink towards him like twin oversized panthers, stalking their prey with a chilling grace. "Oh no..." he thought in horror.