Pestilence: Rise Of The Pure Undead

Within an unlit underground chamber, a black knight leaned over a detailed map, not of the continent, but of a specific region, expertly made with the help of scouts, both on foot and airborne, as well as cartographers of course, the Eastern Peaks were a very vertical place indeed, some of those peaks were really only accessible to those gifted with wings or otherwise capable of flight, scaling them was much too arduous and dangerous, but it also had many caves and caverns, the eastern people had settled into caves which openings were on the sides of certain mountains, it was home to a few species of dragons, trolls and many other monsters, but really only the dragons could contend with the eastern folks.

All else was considered prey and food, no matter how appalling and disgusting they may be.

Horhir had spent much time documenting the hunting grounds of the livings, their habits, as well as those of the creatures they hunted down, what those preys fed upon, all natural sources of water, the livings of the peaks led simple lives, guided by feasting, they always ate, they were always seeking ingredients, they were always butchering their catches.

The right hand had gathered all possible information before declaring battle.

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"Tilmiel, you can proceed with the mission now" Horhir spoke to another undead present in the room, barely even noticeable, in fact, even he could only sense her because she was allowing for it, he did not know when Loimos had trained her, or created the nightbirds she led, but they were exceptional at stealth.

The knight was even certain what it was that they had been trained for exactly, simply assuming them to be assassins and spies, Tilmiel however, in spite of her occupation and rather melodious name, she was a rather imposing undead, taller and wider than Horhir, with hands big enough crush the heads of multiple people at once, dressed in simple, grey clothing, bands of leather wrapped around her feet, a cloak of black feathers cascading over the back, and rolling over the cascade of dark, was her surprisingly bright, almost luminous blonde hair, tied into a massive braid.

"It shall be done swiftly" responded the nightbird, her skeletal fingers cracking one by one as she stood up, vanishing from the room entirely.

Indeed, Horhir had not been given the same resources as Ourlst, both had to make do with what they had at hand, adapt their strategies according to the circumstances, and those resources had definitely been picked with much purpose by Loimos, although very similar, the two hands did have differences in their choices of specialisation, they represented the dextral and sinistral, thus, both had learned to wield the respective aspects of the apocalypse held within the one they represented.

As such, Horhir knew how to make use of the aspects of war and conquest, whilst Ourlst knew how to wield famine and pestilence.

But to really get them out of their comfort zone, Ourlst was commanding with war and conquest in mind, whilst Horhir had to spread pestilence and famine, here in particular, Tilmiel's mission was to do just that, keeping his general's orders in mind, the knight declared for battle beforehand.

'Now, I need to see how they will react… If they have larger stocks than I assumed, or if they have ways to reach sustenance through their own caves…' he did not cry victory too quickly, cutting off their alimentation would be especially harsh on the feasters as they ate more than the regular livings, but he did not dare lose focus, he had to be meticulous.

"Here they go"

Somewhere above ground, as the third night of delay between peace and battle ended, the feasters converged upon the undead camp, silent and still, Derdlim Maulerd led the assault, closely followed by Gartran, expecting a tide of corpses led by the rider to pour out any seconds from now from the gates, they got closer and closer, through the gate, and still nothing.

The warqueen cursed under her breath, the camp was perfectly, and utterly empty of all residents, her scouts had affirmed that it was still brimming with undeads moments before the attack, and yet, everything appeared to have been left as was for weeks, which actually did not say much, it would probably be this way even if the dead were still around.

Their camp was deserted, all had vanished right as the battle was supposed to start, the feasters expected themselves to be taken in ambush as they were now inside the camp, or for the place to blow up or something of this sort, but their queen rested her cleaver upon one shoulder.

"Search for any passage or way they could have disappeared through" commanding them all, shaking her head as this was all a ill omen, the undeads did not have to be so fearful of them, and she doubted that they could even experience genuine fear in the first place, just like with the way they had decided to go about in the south, they were not facing the livings head-on even if they had every chances to come out on top, or inflict enough damage to make a second assault into a victory.

But she could not just manifest the reason why they chose this approach of all things, had the undead camp even been there in the first place, or had it always been a decoy? Was the camp just a red herring, had they never intended on mobilising much troops at all?

All that she felt confident in, was that they would probably also declare battle upon the north and west soon as well, and would certainly not engage them in the expected way either.@@novelbin@@

As she thought, her warriors scoured the entire place, struggling to find their way through the intentionally confusing layout, all buildings and tents were empty, hollow, not a single object or trace had been left behind, this reminded some of what had happened to the last credible threat they had had to face, back when there had been two tribes living in the Eastern Peaks, their enemies however, had all vanished without a trace.

One day they were waging war upon one another, and the next, all was over, but in the case of their former opposition, it had appeared as though everyone had either ran away without taking any time to pack anything, or had just popped out of existence in the middle of whatever they had been doing.

One feaster mentioned this to Derdlim, who did not react much at first, it was an old story without explanation, not very relevant to the situation.

"Mmh… The undeads, they wouldn't know about it…" Gartran shifted uncomfortably, as though only he understood what the queen was thinking about.

Indeed, as her right hand, he was trusted with more information than all others, and so, like his chief, he was well aware that what had made their former enemy disappear, whatever being or event it was, had not only come about this one time.

"But chief… Who is to say that it will act against the dead? Or that they won't best it and turn it back against us?" he communicated using the secret language.

"Gartran, I don't think we are in a position to consider such an outcome any worse than whatever they have in mind themselves…"