March Home
"Eris!" shouted a wounded man. His entire left hand was gone, his leather armor showing how clean that cut was. But, he was still on his two feet, his eyes looking at his daughter, a young girl barely fifteen years old, that was with the other warriors holding the shield line.
"I'm sorry!" the man shouted before the swishing of a blade was heard. His body froze in place, a sad smile frozen on his lips as his head slowly slid off his severed neck and fell to the ground. The was only a soft this but to Eris, she felt as if a ten tier spell just exploded in her mind. She looked at her father's headless body as it fell to the ground next to its head before looking at his murderer, a rotting corpse that had already forgotten about her and set its decaying eyes onto another prey.
"Eris! Focus, we are shield maidens, we do not fall out of line!" she heard someone say, quickly pulling her out of it.
"Sorry, won't happen again," she apologized to her superior as she quickly corrected her form just as an undead bashed into it.
It was supposed to knock her off her feet but she barely even registered that it had hit her shield. Her hand moved on its own, her sword cutting through its skull and killing it in one fluid movement, letting it join the numerous corpses at their feet. She looked at her father's corpse, seeing how the foul necrotic magic was changing it into an undead, only to fail because it had no head. She was relieved at this, finally putting that out of her mind for the time being.
She bashed her shield onto and oncoming undead, sending it flying away. A shield maiden next to her let out a scream of pain, making her look at her, only to see an arrow in her shoulder. Looking at where it came from, she saw an undead on a horse, armed with a long bow and three quivers full of arrows, two hanging on an undead horse. It had nocked another arrow on its bow and aimed at the shield maiden, ready to kill her.
She timed it correctly, moving so fast nobody there could even react. Her sword blocked the flying arrow that was aimed right at her eye before pretending nothing happened. She looked at the undead and if it would show emotions,bit would be scowling in confusion.
"Archer!" she shouted. From behind the rows of shield maidens, she felt magic brewing before a fire ball flew past their heads and exploded once it hit the undead archer that was trying to scamper off.
"Mages, how much longer!" Eris heard her superior ask.
"We're ready!" Eris heard someone answer.
"Shield maidens, formation three!" their superior shouted.
With practiced motion, everyone parted in the middle, taking four steps to their sides, leaving a wide berth for the spell the mages were about to fire. Eris could basically taste the magic this time, a testament to just how much Magick they had put into the spell.
"Darkness collapse!" a collection of voices chanted the spell's name before a ball of light shot past them and hit an undead. Like a bomb, the ball of light exploded, temporarily blinding everyone.
The living warriors felt their spirits invigorated and minor wounds healed. But, the undead shrilled and screamt in pain. Darkness Collapse was the only Light spell that was named after Darkness. It's function was to undo any Darkness spell no matter which tier the spell was. So, to the undead, it was the bane of their very existence. The necrotic magic that brought them back from the dead was vanquished, leaving behind just normal rotting corpses.
"Fucking finally!" Eris heard one of the warriors exclaim in relief. She could understand their feelings.
This battle has been going on for around seven hours now. The undead were relenting, filling their ranks with any fallen warrior of shield maiden and added to their inexhaustible numbers, it was a pretty long fight. A fight that would have continued on till the living were exhausted if they didn't have mages with them.
"We have no time to rest," the Jarl shouted at everyone, making all of them groan in frustration. They wanted to at least catch their breath before any more fighting. "Carry all the corpses into a heap for burning, now!"
One weakness that the Darkness Collapse spell had was that it was just temporary. The necrotic magic was going to return and every corpse here was going to be animated back to being undead in three hours. This, they needed to burn the bodies to prevent this.
Eris made sure she was the one to pick her father's corpse with the severed head and carried it effortlessly to the growing pile. She said a short prayer before throwing the corpse to the heap and turning to carry more.
"This wasn't the afterlife I imagined," she sighed to herself as she picked another corpse.
Years ago, she was in another world, having a normal human life which meant she was behind her bills and she needed money. So, she had worked herself to the bone, got seriously sick and died. Instead of finding herself in heaven or hell, she found herself seated on a yoga mat, staring at this ethereal beauty of a woman who told her she was dead.
Basically, she had a choice, move on which meant losing her memories and reincarnating, or the woman would give her a choice, a dangerous choice at that.
Basically, she wanted her to go to another world and kill a hero she had sent over. She was not given a reason why, just this mission. She accepted the mission and the woman showed her a roulette wheel that had thousands of skills and powers that she would inherit in this new world.
So, she spun the wheel, already expecting a shitty power only for it to end up on Godly physique. The description said that she had been blessed with godly talent in combat, physical abilities and mentally. She would literally be a god amongst men in her new world.
......
"Warriors, shield maidens!" the Jarl called out after all the corpses had been sorted out and the mages burnt them before they left, leaving this clan on their own. Quickly, they all gathered around the Jarl.
"We got lucky today," the Jarl started. "The mages guild were feeling rather generous today thus they had sent their mages to aid us in this battle. But, we will not be lucky another day. So, we march on home vigilantly and hope we do not encounter any horde any time soon. We lost a lot of good men and women today, we need to recuperate before we think of going back to fighting the Litch's armies.
"For you that are alive for now, good job. You are the new blood that we need to get an edge over these trying times. For those that lost family and friends today, I have to apologize for we have no time to mourn for them. We will march back home post haste and maybe you can mourn them there. Pack up and get ready to move on,"
Eris was not surprised by this. This was the North, the harshest condition any where. No life was supposed to thrive here but humans always find a way. So, the environment just became harsher, adding more threats yet, humanity thrives for six millenniums, fighting these threats and overcoming them. For five centuries now, undead have become the new threat and unlike the others, this one might actually wipe out all human life in the North. This, the clans are always at war either ith other clans or mostly with the undead. Any loss will only be mourned at the safety of their clan's walls, this has been the norm. So, they all packed up and the march home started.