《Honor of the Dead》Chapter One: One Grave Knight
Advertisement
Harrin stared at his hand, slowly turning it over. The stark bone that met his vision carried no flesh with it, not anymore. What did that mean for him? For his humanity, if he had any? He couldn't remember what sort of person he'd been when he was… alive.
At least he had a name. The granite gravestone he had awoken beneath had lasted a long time, but even then, the letters were so eroded that it took some scratching to make out the indent of his name.
There had been a relief in knowing he wasn't a simple zombie, mindless with no drive beyond hunger. There was equal relief to be had that he wasn't a ghost or wight, incapable of touch or interaction. But what that left him with was a lack of knowledge. If not those, then what was he?
He looked at the necromancer who had raised him. She was sitting on a rock, shivering uncontrollably. Her clothing was nondescript, a loose brown shirt with baggy pants, and she wore no shoes. Her glazed eyes were fixed forward, staring at nothing. Harrin couldn't help but think she was unprepared for this, and he was surprised to feel sympathy. Necromancers were kingslayers and kingdom-razers, not a half-asleep child.
He approached her after a moment of thought, and she didn't even seem to notice him.
Kneeling again, he placed a hand on her shoulder. She started in surprise, her head snapping up as she stared wide-eyed into his empty sockets. He opened his mouth, his jaw lowering, and tried to speak.
A sibilant hiss slid through his throat, sending a thin jet of air through the mist layering the graveyard. It was an alien sound and a hostile one at that, nothing like the words of comfort he'd meant to give her.
Her pupils dilated in fear, and she tried to back away. Still seated on the rock, she tilted backward, and her arms pinwheeled, a startled shriek ripping from her mouth as she fell.
Harrin seized her hand and twisted, shifting her momentum sideways and pulling her off the rock in one motion before drawing her to her feet. She stood there, shocked for a full second, and then looked down at the bone hand she held.
Tearing her hand out of Harrin's grasp, she hastily backpedaled away, breathing heavily. Harrin straightened, watching her with mixed feelings.
She was the one that raised him. Shouldn't she be more comfortable around the undead? Or was she new to her trade?
Harrin couldn't ask the questions coming to him. Not yet, at least.
The girl's eyes narrowed as she shifted her weight from foot to foot. Finally, she spoke aloud, "Was that… are-" She cut herself off, pursing her lips thoughtfully.
Advertisement
Harrin was glad to hear a language he understood, and he was just as frustrated that he couldn't return her words. Instead, he opted for the most basic of universal gestures.
He raised his hand and waved hello.
Her reaction was immediate. A small "eep" escaped her as she took another step back, but at least her eyes lacked fear. She seemed more startled than anything. After a few seconds, she waved back. “You’re…”
She bit her lip. “You’re alive?”
Harrin looked down at himself, seeing the ground straight through his ribs, then back up at the young girl. Alive wasn’t quite the word he would use to describe himself, but he nodded regardless.
Her hands started trembling, and Harrin watched her curiously, trying to figure out what she was doing.
Before he could react, she burst into tears and slammed into him. He was alarmed for a fraction of a second before he realized she was simply hugging him, crying uncontrollably. After a moment of uncertainty, he uncomfortably put a hand on her back.
She wasn’t stopping.
Harrin searched through what scant remainder of his memories were left and came up empty. At no point had he been good with crying children, and he’d always passed that job onto…
The name almost came to him but escaped before he could grasp it.
Pulling away, she began stumbling towards the edge of the graveyard, still crying. “We - we have to g-go.” Harrin hurried after her, grabbing onto her shoulder. She shook her head, wiping snot from her nose. “We have to go-” She tripped over a gnarled tree root, hiccuping in surprise. Harrin’s hand shot out and seized the back of her shirt, pulling her back to her feet. She swayed, looking up at him.
He took a step back as he saw the expression on her face. It was the most horrific mix of desperation and fear and anger he’d ever seen. It made feelings rise up inside him that he didn’t have a name for, but most prominent among them was deep concern.
Harrin had no context for why she was crying, and he certainly didn’t know how to deal with it. But he’d rescued people before - or at least he was fairly sure he had - and that was a decent frame of reference to work with.
With quick action, he scooped her up, ignoring the squeak of surprise that slipped out of her. She was still crying too much for Harrin to understand a word of what she was saying. He simply shook his head.
Walking past the milling undead nearby, he set her down on a mound of dirt and crouched, looking her in the eye.
Advertisement
Sniffling miserably, she hunched in on herself, curling into a fetal position. Worryingly, she was repeating herself, saying the same phrase over and over. “We have to- we have to go. We have to go. We…”
Harrin knelt next to her and placed a bone hand on her side. She stiffened, sharply drawing a breath. For a moment he thought she’d stopped breathing.
All of a sudden, the dam broke, and she began sobbing outright. Harrin awkwardly stayed next to her, maintaining the contact. He had no idea whether this was beneficial or not. One thing for sure, she defied his mental picture of what a necromancer was supposed to be.
He waited for her to stop crying so she could tell him what she needed, or at least tell him what her name was, but it didn’t seem to really end.
After perhaps ten minutes, she fell silent. Harrin inquisitively looked a little closer and found she was asleep.
Standing, Harrin gazed down at the small, vulnerable shape lying on the cold dirt, fast asleep. Her clothes had been filthy to begin with, but now he doubted they could be cleaned at all. Her hair was matted, although he couldn’t tell whether it was from mud or blood or both.
He came to a conclusion a few moments later. Inconsequential of further proceedings, this girl needed to be kept safe. He didn’t care if that was his own decision or some necromantic safety magic nonsense. Everything about what he knew about honor stated that children were to be protected at all costs.
Rising to his feet, Harrin lifted his hand and looked through it, then clenched it into a fist. He’d been dead for a while, that much was obvious. Flesh decomposed quickly, but not that quickly. Moreover, his own mentality towards having died was… strangely disconnected. Perhaps it was dissociation? Considering he lacked a brain, he couldn’t help but doubt it. Unless that sort of thing didn’t matter.
He’d never had questions about the undead until he’d become one. Now he wished he’d done more research and less smiting. There were only so many ways to smash a skeleton’s head in until you figured out the fastest and easiest way to do it just right, and he’d pretty much gotten that down to an art form.
Removing his sword from the rotten scabbard that carried it, Harrin inspected the blade with no small amount of disappointment. It was rusted far beyond repair, and the edge itself had been reduced to a wavy series of lines instead of the perfectly straight blade he’d recalled it to be.
Harrin paused even as he sheathed the weapon. Why did he remember this? Why could he remember with such clarity how to use his sword? He knew every maneuver, every slash, every minute of effort he’d put into perfecting his footwork, and yet the faces of the people in his mind stayed faded. Was it some second effect of the necromancy at work? An intent to produce only soldiers for the raiser?
He glanced down at the sleeping shape of the young girl again. She seemed so peaceful, and yet incomporably fragile. He couldn’t compare her to the picture of a necromancer he held in his head.
The rest of the undead occupying the graveyard seemed largely uninterested in anything going on, save for one. One of the undead, one of the few with any flesh left on them, slowly began walking towards the girl. Based on the empty look in its eyes, it was barely even conscious, but Harrin drew his sword regardless.
The zombie paused, looking at the sword with only mild consternation. Looking up at Harrin, it released a low moan. It was devoid of anything that might be construed as intelligent, which made Harrin feel a little better about what happened next.
It lumbered towards the girl with its arms outstretched, shambling faster than he expected. Raising his sword, he gripped the handle with both hands and brought it sideways to slice into the zombie’s neck.
The blade was too rusted to have anything resembling an edge, and yet it slammed into the exposed flesh harder than Harrin had ever hit anything. The sheer force of the blow decapitated the zombie with the sound of breaking metal, and the beheaded corpse was launched off its feet, tumbling away. Its head hit the ground with a dull thump a moment later, and Harrin stared at it in confusion.
Even decomposing, flesh should be difficult to cut through, and that was with a good sharp sword. And yet, there had been barely any resistance.
Harrin looked down at his hands, still grasping the sword. Or at least, the sword’s handle. The sound he’d heard hadn’t been from the undead, but rather his own weapon breaking. Only a few inches of rusted steel were left above the crossguard, and he couldn’t see where the rest of it had gone.
He had more questions than ever.
Advertisement
- In Serial20 Chapters
Deity of carnage - Unholy Kingdom
Book 2 has started: Without body, withouth strenght. How do you fight the strong when you are nothing? Will Keeper survive the ordeals ahead of himself to finaly come out on the top? And become the greatest calamity Terra has ever seen! Authors note: Hello guys, some heads up. Not native in English and got dyslexia. Fret not I atleast have autocorrect. So, I hope its readable for you guys and girls out there. Hope you enjoy :) I will release ones a month optimally.
8 167 - In Serial10 Chapters
The Lost One
A stranger in a dark cloak creeped into the room of a small Elven child on one fateful day. Wyrran was playing with his sister one second, but the next he was gone. Stolen from the middle of their estate, and never to be seen again in Elven country. Years go by, hundreds of years, and Wyrran has grown into a man. His name has been changed to William, though his Master was put under the instruction to make sure he lost his memory from before the ago of 80, and from what Wyrran knew he had always been William. After he has completed his training and he finished many various tasks William is sent on a job for the King of Trace. It was a confidential assignment, which was new to William in the first place, but never would he imagine that this one job just may be his last. ********************************************* Hey everyone! Author here (: This is my first time posting any of my works online, and I hope that you enjoy being welcomed into my world, as much as I enjoy creating it for you! I welcome any and all criticism, so long as it is actually something that can benefit my writing (not just random hating and nothing substantial). This story is edited by Nesryn and ArtemisArrow, my dear friends! The cover of this book is not my property, and if you are the actual owner of the image and would like me to take it down please PM me (: I am posting this to see if it generates any interest. If it does, then I will be planning on making more regular posts for chapters. I am intending this to be one book of a series, titled The Lost Royal. I intend to post, at this point, one chapter a week unless I get onto a roll! If this starts to accrue enough interest where I can start focusing solely on writing then more chapters will be released per week. Thanks for your interest, and I hope you enjoy!
8 65 - In Serial12 Chapters
The Point Legacy
PLANET EARTH in the year 2020,The ground shakes with a heaven sundering roar, a massive figure is seen in the vast skies above, the figure both stationary but omnipresent. A voice thunders, like the massive roar of the inimitable tide, "You have been selected to represent me in 'The Games'." It sounds almost displeased when it utters the word "selected". "Brace yourself and say goodbye to the little attachment you have to your planet, for never will you see it again, unless...." Then the lights went out on a planetary scale.--------------------------------------------------Each human of every race awakens a new form of levelling, a Point Cloud (search online for the same for a visual impact), each dot in a Point Cloud, known as a Bio Point, can be 'opened' with energy and in doing so will help the person gain more strength. Hope y'all like it.
8 85 - In Serial23 Chapters
An Invisible Girl
Not all Isekai is Human This is the story of the last survivor of her race, who is offered the option to be reborn in another world to continue the fight against the monsters that consumed her species. The new world is a horrible death world. It is filled with both beauty and horror, strange sentients of various types and perhaps the most dangerous monsters ever conceived. Humans. Two aliens. two violently opposed cultures. Is One little world big enough for both of them? First note: Please don't expect immediate action and slaughter and sex. There's a lot of conversation, drama, and interaction, as she learns about her new world. Second note: This is not 'humans as monsters'. It is more like "There are monsters, but humans can make their own". Technically I guess it qualifies as a system apocalypse, but it never really hits the apocalypse parts. Third note: This IS a Litrpg and the 'classes' provide some superhero-style action, eventually. It isn't strictly superhero, though. a lot of bits are contemporary fantasy, some are pure sci-fi, and some are superhero, depending on how people choose their new abilities. The overall theme is technically sci-fi, but soft like a baby. Fourth note: there is some sexuality (not sex) involving a protagonist in a 17-year-old body. Her mind is over 50 years old, though, and the body was created at that age in order to give her 6 months' leeway to learn to be human. This is not juvenile sex stuff, as the character is fully adult, just not adult as a Human.Plus it's mostly included for humor and alien context.
8 96 - In Serial80 Chapters
Fateless: The Silver Lining
It has been ten years of peace for the Union since the end of the great war with the eastern barbarian tribes, yet in the cold north of the Union's land, a new threat is looming. This time, an ambitious Lord is seeking to restore the yore pride of his kin, forcing the weakened Union into yet another unwanted war, as he ramps up the ranks of his army with thieves, murderers and mercenaries.* * *The temperature inside the forge was nearly twice as high as the one outside. A black-haired girl hammered a steel ingot into the shape of a blade. The heat of the steam was draining her stamina away, but her focus remained sharp as her sweat streamed down her face. Hit after hit, for hours, the sound of the hammering steel followed the rhythm of her breathing. Exhausted, she placed the blade into the water and wiped the sweat off her face using a drenched rag. Why are they screaming? Vatra dipped the rag back in the water, twisted it, and approached the window. Her mouth opened as her world shattered again into the living nightmare she had wilfully tried to forget. She bit her lips; it wasn’t a dream. The pulse of her heart rose. A cold sweat prickled her back. A mother was running, and a child was screaming. A torrent of smoke was emerging from the roof of her neighbour. Vatra’s eyes blinked. The mother lay on the ground, a spear through her back. A torch circled in the air and landed on the roof of her workshop. In the distance, a man wearing a banner well known to the world… Fateless is a philosophical medieval dark low fantasy centered on war, militaristic campaigns and geopolitical conflicts between multiple empires. This story follows the fate of Vatra, a former slave from the eastern Nar Empire who was raised in a culture far away from her own, forced into warfare against her will, and the fate of Lanaya, an ambitious half-angel exiled from her home whose existence is seen as heresy. As they wished for peace, both chose a path opposed to one another until their fate crossed. In this story where war dictates the law, love strikes them as a poisoned balm to which they grasp for with all their might, as it is in the darkest of times that the smallest flames may burn the brightest. * * * Tome 1 already completed and available on Amazon: https://www.amazon.ca/Fateless-Silver-Hugo-Emmanuel-Simard-Wallot/dp/B09LGSH1KK Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Hugo-Emmanuel-Simard-Wallot-100547579135891/ I will publish 1 chapter per week (sometimes 2 if the chapters are too short for my liking).
8 482 - In Serial37 Chapters
StrayKids | Boxer
✔️StrayKids gang au [Bangchan]Y/N's is a boxer during the day and an assassin at night. One of her missions is to kill the famous gang leader of StrayKids, Bangchan. Known for his incredible boxing skills and ruthlessness in the ring, how will she compare to him. will contain violence, swearingStarted 15/09/19Finished 11/04/20highest ranking#1 straykids#1 leeminho #2 leeknow#5 bangchan#5 straykids#2 chan#1 hwang#5 marktuan
8 84