Spears of Redriver

Part Forty-Two - Fighting Dead Men

"What in Nel are they?" Enlief asked, standing up away from the stone fence. He lowered his hands to his belt, where his sword and handaxe hung.

"I don't know," Carthus replied. He too, lept from the stone wall to join Enlief and Tassos on the opposite side of the shrieking men.

"They must be mad?" Tassos whispered, glaring into the shadows at the figures as they drew closer.

"You there! Stop where you are!" Carthus shouted out, but the humanoid forms kept running, fifty feet...thirty feet. Soon enough, each figure was out of the shadows of the village and the cliff wall beyond. Carthus saw they were not mad; they were dead. The first of them was missing an arm, and despite being half burned, ran quite fast. There were three more now following the first, each torn apart in some way.

"What do we do?" Enlief asked, panicked.

"We fight?" Carthus asked in turn.

"How do we kill something that is already dead?" the Nord retaliated.

"Damn this!" Carthus stepped back, and the others followed suit. The dead men smashed into the stone fence, which only reached up to their stomachs, and began to crawl their way over it. One by one, they quickly slumped to the other side, scrambling wildly to get up.

"We fight!" Carthus shouted. He planted his feet, ignoring the pain in his leg, and held his spear ready in one hand as he pulled the shield from his back. He saw Enlief draw the longsword in one hand, and the handaxe in the other. Tassos was by the Nord's side with his sword raised.

Carthus blinked as one of the dead men slammed into his shield, shrieking to get through as he flailed his one good arm. Carthus took a step back, still forcing his guard up in hopes of tripping the creature. It stumbled as it advanced, and Carthus pulled back quickly and smashed it with his shield, knocking the thing off its feet. Another one was right behind, lunging through the Maad's now open guard. He stumbled and fell to the ground, dropping his spear, with the dead man on top of him.

"AHH!" Carthus shouted as he rolled, pushing it up just enough to reach for his dagger. He ended up on top, holding it down with the shield, and slammed the blade through the dead man's skull with a crisp thud. The man let out a wild scream and began thrashing with his cold, lifeless eyes still fixed on the Maad. He pulled the dagger out and drove it down as hard as he could through the man's shoulder, pinning him to the hard dirt.

Taking a deep breath, as he continued to ignore the throbbing pain in his leg, Carthus pushed himself up to his feet just as the one-armed man stood, facing him. The Maad glanced around for his spear, but it was too far, so he drew his bronze sword, still raising the shield in front.

"Here!" Tassos' voice erupted from the side as his blade swiped right through the one-armed man's throat. The head fell to the dirt, but the body remained up as it now stumbled forward.

"What?!" they both exclaimed as the headless man grabbed hold of Tassos. Carthus stepped in, once again bashing the creature with the shield. Its grip on the young swordsman was too firm, and they both went down. Enlief was suddenly on top of the dead man, trying to pull him off of Tassos and Carthus turned to get his spear.

"Get back!" Tassos shouted and just as suddenly, the dead man burst in flames and quietly fell back flailing in place.

"Are you alright boy?" Enlief held a hand out to the young swordsman, who patted his cloak down, where it too had caught a flame.

"I am" Tassos took the Nord's hand and rose to his feet.

"Everyone is alright?" Carthus asked, eyes now fixed on the one pinned into the dirt.

"Yes, we are fine" Enlief came to his side.

"This one is still alive, I drove the blade through its skull..." Carthus exclaimed, "how did you kill the others?" He turned to look at the last two, which lay still by the fence.

"I took one's head," Enlief replied.

"And I smashed it through the head with my sword...it seemed like it did the trick" Tassos patted the dirt off of himself as he approached. They now all stared at the one still shrieking and trying to pull itself free of the blade.

"What makes these two different? They should both be dead after our strikes... but they kept coming" Carthus said.

"Well, really, it seems they should all have been dead in the first place" Enlief replied with a chuckle.

"Quite the show" a gruff voice shouted at them from the rear. The Spears all turned quickly to find a group of mounted men dressed in tan robes and hoods, with their faces covered, watching them intently. One of them flanked his horse with his heels and rode forward, "you must be Carthus of Redriver...and these are your Spears?"

"Who are you?" Carthus asked, but he knew the answer already, "Ordethi?"

"Indeed," the masked man replied.