Pestilence: Rise Of The Pure Undead

The mystery rider in white successfully escaped all knights sent after him, remaining veiled in enigma for weeks on end, the only traces of his passage being the decapitated corpses of forest animals, whether the headless enacted caution after his first brush with southern knights, or if the attention farmers were putting on their ogres and livelihood deterred all approach.

Many assumed that this pale cavalry only moved under the shade of night, and considering just how dangerous he had been discovered to be, keeping everything a secret from the farmers was no longer viable, they needed to be well aware of just what it was that scoured the countryside, obviously, the hard-workers refused to leave their farms, not that there was any alternative, they were a part of the lungs of this Southern Shore, leaving their crops and such unattended to was out of the question, they had no good prospects away from their farms.

"My farmers would rather go at this thing with a pitchfork than abandon their posts" speaking of them like soldiers, Alisart Cleavster pushed a rusted and withered blade to the center of a round table.

All particles of dust having vanished from its surface, only leaving a fragile, dull hunk of iron, the knight king doubted it could even be used to bash someone's head in this state.

"This thing, has no head you say? And yet it moves and managed to fight off three of your knights? That sounds pretty undead to me" Derdlim Maulerd picked up the sword in between her index and thumb, some of the rust flaking off onto them, which she licked immediately after putting the object back down.

"Tastes like regular rust…"

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Ignoring her mutterings, someone else spoke up.

"You said that they tried burning it, how did that work out?" questioned Irlke Combuscrus, sparks dancing upon his palm.

"Calm down your arson tendencies Irlke, they threw a lantern at it, the headless lit up completely, but after it got rid of the flames, its clothes were barely singed at all, the thing barely even reacted to being set on fire I was told" Alisart explained, the pyromancer king rubbing his chin in thought, red eyes glowing as intensely as ever.

"Mmh, if even your feeble lantern flames could leave a mark, then pyromancy should capable of burning it" nodding to himself, Combuscrus rose one finger "As such-"

"I am not allowing any of your fire fanatics anywhere near my fields, you know as well as me that you guys can't help yourself from burning things down"

Shot down instantly, the northern king crossed his arms and sank in his chair, his infernal pyromancer putting one hand upon her king's shoulder, together, they mourned the lost occasion to burn something.

"I wouldn't mind one of your eagle-eyes though, Jaral, they and my knights could work harmoniously together"

Jaral Cribler seemed to consider it for a moment, but shook his head.

"The open spaces of the south are not very conductive to our style, to be effective, I would need to send quite a few, but I doubt you or your people would be accepting of so many of my archers coming in at once" the archer king was right on this one, agreements had been reached, but that didn't mean that the different populations suddenly liked one another.

The soldiers of the warlords were disciplined enough to follow through with commands of cooperation, but the other inhabitants could not be so readily controlled, it would take a while to get the people used to the fact that they were no longer at war, and probably wouldn't be for a very long time.

"That's true… But if this headless creature is truly an undead, then we better deal with it quickly, it may be feeding information to the dead, or could be here to try and destabilise us, whatever the purpose, it is a problem, and we don't know if it's alone or not, as far as we know, there may be other agents of death in all regions" Alisart scratched the back of his head.

The sound of something snapping brought all attention away from the knight king, and instead to the warqueen, who had just taken a whole bite out of the rusted sword, and was now casually munching it, only taking a pause when noticing that everybody was staring right at her.

Raising both hands, chewing some more before swallowing the iron that had been plunged in the guts of a being with no heads and that was filled with dust.

"Now, now, don't look at me like that, I am just checking something… You don't notice it with just the rust, it must have worn off or something, but inside of the sword… Surprise, there is this bitter taste, somewhat harsh on the tongue, would make most want to vomit, sort of acidic, if you see what I mean…"

"Derdlim, your impression of the taste of a rusty sword is very interesting, but your point?" Irlke questioned.

"Don't be so impatient, my little piece of roasted meat… My point is that there is a specific taste stuck inside of this sword, I spoke of the taste of life force last time, but obviously, our butcher activities yields in a lot of death, so we are rather familiar with the taste of death as well actually, just that we always just went with the idea that it was a mistake in the preparation, but the fact that it found its way into this sword means that the headless carries some death, right?" she took another bite out of the sword.

"I see… But perhaps you should stop eating that thing? That can't be good for the health" Jaral understood that this pretty confirmed that they were dealing with one of the dead without the shadow of a doubt.

"I am preparing for when the undead come about, I am already imagining all the tasty recipes I will be able to try out…" this talk about eating reminded the cannibal queen about something else.@@novelbin@@

"Gartran, show them the goods, you didn't eat them already right?"

"No ma'am, I demonstrated restraint as per your orders" said her right hand whilst blinking too many times.

Handing his lord a small bag, the warqueen readily opened it, displaying an assortment of dried strips of flesh, meat grounded into balls, or some guts stuffed with all kinds of things, as well as gourds most certainly filled with blood.

"We feasters haven't just learned to grow stronger from consuming flesh and the likes, we know how to prepare special meals, and as a sign of goodwill, I'll give you guys some as well" the large women smiled toothily, but considering her nicknames as cannibal queen and man-eater, no one was thrilled to experience her idea of gourmet cuisine.

"Pinky promise, no human, elven, or flesh of otherwise intelligent species was used for those, I can be trusted"

Those last four words were the most egregious lie the warkings had ever been told, and their contemporary, Derdlim Maulerd said it with a straight face.

"Those recipes were even made for you in particular, I wanted to make a big pie to celebrate the peace but wasn't certain how to make one everybody would like, anybody want a cave troll eye?"

"Perhaps we could return to the topic of the headless instead?"

"Just give it a go!"

"I respectfully decline-"