Chapter 22

The next day, outskirts of Andorhol

"To arms! To arms! The undead are afore us! Charge!" the horns blew, and the banners of the knights company went forward.

Nearly a hundred men in heavy plate armor upon greatly barded with eloquent sheets of thick iron and steel. The lances came down, and a great heaving upon the extended oaken wood was felt.

Valdar Justax could barely even see out of his own helm, but indeed his time had come. His company had finally been brought into the battle after being reenlisted into Prince Arthas's forces after he had called for help. Indeed the life of a knight was for him. Though only a knight bachelor of the lower nobility, he indeed had promise, or so was told by the Grand Cordon during his days of training as a page and esquire.

Riding in the back of the formation, he smoothly handled the reins of his steed, feeling the ground through the vibrations of the horse whom he had named Constance. He still hadn't seen the face of the enemy but had heard from the other, older cavalrymen about the Plague and the undead that roamed the land. Many had begun to refer to the Plague and the undead that followed it as 'the Scourge' as if it were a great cloud of the pestilence that had come from the Great Dark Beyond to swallow up the land.

In the front of the line, he heard the grotesque noises as lances split through the enemy, whomever so they are, orcs or undead. The company glided over low dips and slight hills of muck, where the ground had been turned to a strange dead soil. Above, the rain had begun to fall upon the land as the army had turned to Andorhol.

He had heard from the men in the column that the Prince had marched them nearly all through the night with only an hour's rest. Indeed something big must have been brewing. Again the trumpet blew, and the rider's urged their horses onward. To the right and east, he heard clashings of sword and shield, the cries of men in battle, and those wounded. Suddenly, his chest felt cold, knowing that indeed here on the battlefield he could be stricken down at any moment.

With trembling hands, he continued to guide the horse with the company. In an instant, a sudden shower of arrows fell upon the knights. Valdar instantly recognized the face of his friend Thorek Ghent as his helmet slid off his head, with a great shaft protruding from his eye visor.

Suddenly, a great fear tore through him. He could be next? The fear, the terror, so overwhelming as he stared into the voided eyes of the lumbering corpses being directed by their masters. Such horror that he felt now…nothing was worth this, or so it seemed! Indeed he would have turned the horse around and ridden for life if he could, but he was…frozen.

"Shall I be called a coward?" he whispered silently, losing his voice in the wind.

Valdar felt sickened, as he did when he had first encountered the orcs in Strahnbrad. The great golden trumpet blew again…this was his time. As men crumpled under the great volley of arrows, the second line came forth and lay down their lances. The sight came into view.

What seemed innumerable undead strew the terrain, with men in shining armor fighting them. However, despite the seeming odds of the battle, indeed the undead were weak, and Valdar saw that in many places the infantry broke through with ease.

"Though there seem to be many, they are not as great as your eyes make them appear" the Cordon who was leading them shouted out, barely decipherable "We ride to the bridge! Clear a path for the infantry!"

Neatly, the knight's compact formation straightened out into a single line, the great forest of lances now laid down, pennants and banners fluttering in the breeze.

"How do they do it?" Valdar wondered, feeling the great revulsion pass through his body has the horses trod upon fresh corpses, thinking of not only the horses but men as well…creatures who think, rationalize, befriend?

"How do we commit to war? Such depravity!" he thought as the line passed a company of bedraggled footmen tangling with a mass of undead emerging from the nearby forest, looking as if they were a mix between the rotting bodies of days old villagers and the skeletal remains of those years dead wearing nothing but the tattered remains of cloth if any at all.

The great masses of ghoulish undead seemed to link together in a great ring around the bridge into the flaming remains of Andorhol, and the knights were headed straight for the center. Just pieces to use…..

Pieces to throw away in an attempt to breakthrough. That was all men were in war; blocks on a map. It became painfully clear to Valdar that his own life meant nothing to those of the higher nobility, or the Generals, so long as the goal was won by days end. Had it been a mistake? Should he have listened to his father and the elders in his village, who had told of the Second War of nothing but terror tales?

As the masses grew closer, Valdar saw them clearer; skin, loosely hanging on their faces, bags under their emotionless eyes. Some wore expressions of pain, others neutrality as if they hadn't known what was going on when they were infected.

Their clothes were a mess, edges infringe or torn and covered in dried blooded, hands and makeshift weapons caked with more of the life fluid. Indeed these were villagers who only a week ago had been tilling fields, selling the last of their stores before the autumn, working in shops and smithies, serving the King in ways they knew best. Valdar heaved, gagged, but barely managed to hold back his breakfast.

Suddenly, his right arm jerked and felt as if on fire. The wooden lance, tipped with an iron spear, impaled one of the many undead around him. Another arrow swept by, glancing the armor of the rider next to him. The lance splintered off, and it, and the ghoul it had just impaled disappeared as the knights drove deep into the mass, leaving more dead behind it.

Yet, as far as they were going, the horses could not manage the sheer numbers of the enemy. Pikes and pitchforks stabbed them where they were not armored, or tore at the chain mail around their necks. Within an instant, one of the seemingly uncoordinated zombies tore at his horse's hind legs with a great butcher's knife, cutting even into the bone of the hapless creature.

With a great neigh, the horse threw Valdar off its back, who fell into a puddle of mud not two feet away. As the knights passed, many of the undead themselves were thrown to the ground or rendered incapable of fighting back. However, a few still crawled here and there.

Valdar screamed as one of the zombies jumped upon him, tearing and gnashing at his armor. For a seemingly decrepit creature it had supernatural strength, his own arms barely able to keep it away from the weak spots in his armor.

Other knights too had been thrown off their mounts in the seemingly ill-fated frontal assault and were hacked up by the ghouls. One was torn to shreds, limb by limb, screaming as he realized his own gross dismemberment. Rolling away from the creature he ran, soaked to the under mesh to the nearest copse of trees, tears rolling down his face in horror.

Unsheathing his blade, he rested his back against a tree and noted the damage to his breastplate. Unable to gain even a moment's reprieve, however, disgusting mass of sown flesh the size of an ogre suddenly cleaved at the tree in an attempt to kill Valdar. He had seen such a thing as the knights had first ridden towards the undead lines. In a single swipe, it thrust its crude weapon through the tree, splintering its trunk, and nearly crushing Valdar.

Raising his weapon and body, Valdar dodged the next attacks by the abomination of a creature, slashing at its legs periodically, causing putrid rotten blood to spew forth. It was him, or this…thing.

The thing knocked him back with yet another arm, which Valdar had now estimated at about four, blowing his wind out. Just as the abomination was about to strike again however, the Light itself seemed to rescue him.

A nearby column of infantry surrounded the hideous being and stabbed at it much as Valdar had done. It swiped at the men, throwing many of them as it had Valdar, but in the end, they were able to cut down the great abomination. Standing up groggily, Valdar could see that the way to the bridge had indeed been cleared by the knights, and the infantry was now securing the area.

Sighing with relief, Valdar threw off his helm and passed out. His first taste of true battle had left him drained beyond all comprehension.

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