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« on: January 19, 2014, 10:39:21 pm »
Here's the first bit. More coming soon.
6th Galena
As it always does in Necrothreat, this story begins with a death. The fields of the battle lay littered with corpses, or as the men had taken to calling them the “sleepers”. As any soldier would be willing to acknowledge, no sleeper slumbers for ever, and all raise from their tombs in time. Something we are sorely lacking, here. Time. For as it stretches on, the number of Ur’s forces increases. There seems to be a change amongst them, though. A disorientation that I do not know what to make of. But alas, I would find the reason out soon enough. This is what happened.
I am given to understand that the previous overseer was a fool, parading in pomp and ceremony, leaving the doors wide open for a spot of “spring cleaning”. Needless to say, the man was quite mad. Irontomato was his name, and his head was as thick as the fruit for which he was named. But he left the doors open, and that is what counts. For it was through those doors that NAV bravely marched, on an errand of vengeance. Too many we had lost, too many. His blood boiled with the injustice of generations suffering under the administrations of Ur, of Fain. His mind, so often soaked in booze was for once sober, keen as a tack. As he marched past, ignoring my call to return immediately, lest the zombies have him, he took a swig of ale from the ever-present flask. It only occurred to me later that he hadn’t stopped drinking at all, but that his mind had risen above such petty things as being drunk. He was a Forumite, through and through. Beer was his craft and his pleasure, but he marched for more than his own pleasure. He marched with the ghosts of his friends and family, of every member of the fort’s dead, riding upon his shoulders. As he passed through the door, he gave a huge belch which seemed to rattle the door frame. Then he was through, and the spreading plain was before him, and he could see the zombies in all their multitudes. “Well bollocks” drifted in through the doors just before they slammed shut with a resounding thud. NAV was amongst the dead.
Th4DwArfY1 pauses in his writing and takes a swig of his own ale, smiling fondly at the memory. Whatever else may be said, it was NAV who walked through those doors, the same as the one who I first approached with leadership. After the ale burned its track down his throat, Th4DwArfY1 turned back to his work, soiled though it was by grime and ink stains. This was the only way he could do him proud, by noting down his death. A tear rolled down his cheek to mix with the ink on the page, but he was too busy writing to notice.
A bolt was all the zombies felt as he mowed them down, the spawn of Ur fleeing from his aim. He stood above them, his crossbow unnervingly accurate. Zombies by the score were felled that day, and NAV killed more than any had though possible. With each reload of a bolt, he took a sip of beer, his own home-brew. A master beersmith to the end. Sometimes words drifted to those of us cowering on the other side of the door. “For my family”, he said with cold fury. “For my friends”, he said with unwavering hate. Each sentence he spoke was punctuated by the quickly cut off gurgle of zombies in pain feeling the embrace of the earth once more, the husks falling as NAV’s bolts pierced their foul skin. One more thing we heard before he left the high ground, his quiver out of bolts. “FOR NECROTHREAT!” The birds in the trees rose in a swarm above his head, carrion eaters sensing an easy meal on the way. For if there is one thing they have learned, it is that when a Forumite born of Necrothreat shouts those words, it means there will be death, and much of it. No ordinary force could have withstood that charge. He plunged into their ranks, grasping hands tearing at clothes as he passed, only to be beaten back by his crossbow, only to feel his wrath spent upon them. Bones broke in splinters and flew back to pierce their owners, and NAV fought with a halo of darkness rising above his head, with birds wheeling in dark patterns in the sky. These were the things that NAV saw, oldest amongst us, before he finally relented, and gave his life as forfeit to the powers that be.
And die he did. For whilst he fought unswervingly, there were always more, always more zombies. Many days he fought in the waste, arms like lead, feet shuffling in the ashen grass. He didn’t give up, not even when those slain rose from the ground in front of him, behind him…even under him. No cry was given, no pleading as the tide of undead drew him under their weight. His hand rose above the tide in a final farewell, then grew limp and fell back into the writhing mass of bodies.
And NAV was no more.
At these words, Th4DwArfY1 set down his pen, his bluff features twisted in some indiscernible expression. His mouth tightened in a white line, and his craggy brow overshadowed his hooked nose. Then he began to sob, great heaving convulsions of chest and back, tears leaking out from under his eyelids and running in silver rivulets through his beard. NAV is dead. NAV was no more. The words swim in front of his eyes as Th4DwArfY1 released the sorrow of an entire nation, a nation not given to revealing anything but the strongest of feelings. And he cried, on and on, and did not stop until he was spent, weak and feeble on his bed.
))
