[WP] Human beings are a crop and what we know as death is merely harvest time.

...

Once, a boy had been born to a loving family in the Doterra heartlands. Under his father's instruction, he learned the sword. He learned of faith, and he learned of god. To this young boy, the world was simple: beautiful.

Like his father, the boy dreamed of protecting it.

Tirelessly, the Skeleton marched with a steady gait, unconcerned by the cold of the evenings or the heat of the high-noons. Instead it carried on as it had been commanded, following the certain instructions of its master without complaint.

The commands echoed on within its mind. Over, and over again. It had no choice but to listen.

The boy grew older. Despite his mother's protests, he enlisted to serve beneath the Holy Knights. In service of the Light and the faith, it was there the boy would grow in both body and spirit.

Damned and forsaken by both gods and mortals alike, the Skeleton lifted its legs and bones moved alongside the thousands of others, pacing their steps in shambling clatters and scents of dust and rotted flesh. Within its skull, the horrible voice continued without end.

A timeless whispering, urging it forward.

For a time, life was of peace. Of betterment and training, preparation and learned skills. The boy grew to become a man, and at long last, he received the rank he'd long been striving towards. Proud and sworn, he soon married beneath the stained glass and Light of the gods.

Orders and commands: Those were all the Skeleton knew.

But during the long march, there were times when it almost recognized what had once been. Almost knew more, for rare and fleeting seconds along the way. Far off and hazy memories, buried and forgotten. Unseen and hidden stories of what had been before this long march. Before it became undead.

The High Church, the Bishops and the Clerics declared the West a wicked place. A land of death, and monsters. Faithless, even for the rare men who carve out a living in its destitute squalor. To the West, was a land both hated and feared.

There are laws of Magic, just as with all things in nature.

Strict rules that even the most powerful of sorcerers must abide in their creations, even when delving among the forbidden and taboo. No undead can come to be without a master, and no Master can make a corpse raise from its grave without a contract. Even in the most unfair of bargains, a deal with the forces of death can take most but never all.

The boy, turned man, turned warrior of faith, choose his path. Leaving Wife and child, he turned towards the rallying of his country with open arms.

To protect this world, he would fight. It was his duty.

His purpose.

So it was: though the soul who once inhabited the body that marched had long since left, tiny flickers remained. The Skeleton's essence, as it may be described by those studied in such things. A bare and quiet whisper compared to the flame of life and spirit it once held, but a whisper which persists by the laws of nature. Terms set by the gods long ago, enforced to persist long into the coming future.

The man listened as Church bells rang, and the voices of chorus lofted in song and hymn. The Gates to the Western badlands opened wide on their mighty hinges revealing his first sight of the twisted and blackened spire far-off along the Horizon beyond the plains.

How long had such a thing lurked out of sight behind the great walls? How tall must it be, massive that even from such a distance it loomed? A sensation of dread might rise, but by the voice of gods- words passed through the Holy Bishops themselves: Victory was preordained.

The man knew there was nothing to fear.

Deep within the empty sockets of the bone and rotting flesh, tiny cinders carried on like distant candles within the Skeleton's horrid skull: The last light of a man not yet relinquished to death. An undead in service of the Dark Lord, carrying but a rusted sword left to the elements without care for oil or polish.

A sword it soon drew, flashing stained rust to the moonlight.

Banners lofted in the winds, and cheers ushered from many a throat. A victory for the Faith. A Conquest for the East! A Crusade that might topple the Dark and wicked lands beyond the Holy Wall of Stone that shielded mankind. It was done! The Orcs had fallen, the Armies had survived, and before them stood the bastion of darkness. A Tower soon to be torn down before the light.

The man watched as the Leaders gathered, and the Great Dragon soared towards the farthest heights breathing the white flames of god's own wrath upon the final enemies lurking there.

Red covered rust and dulled silver, as the bones marched on. Though it remembered nothing of the source, around the Skeleton there were fires which bloomed across its path, and along the way of its march were the sounds of battle.

A battle of both living, and dead.

Magics lashed out and brought the man to his knees. From among their own soldiers, a single mage cackled with horrible glee- their staff raised high overhead as faces about them withered and died.

The Dark Lord! Here, among them! The foe of all foes- the truest enemy of the faith!

Raising his sword, the man charge forward against the surge of black and smoke- desperate to crush this terrible foe. Instead, his body faltered, legs faltering to lay him flat upon the barren earth as tendrils of death speared deep through his armor and chest.

Screams and clashing steel: horses and men. The Skeleton's allies engaged in terrible brutality: Skulls shattering beneath enemy attacks, cracks and ushers of thunder and lightning fraying the very air around them. it saw comrades falter under the rain of dull tipped arrows, and as it continued, it saw armored men with polished steel cleave through spine and rotted flesh with ease.

But still the march forward continued, and the sword was ready.

Body frozen and strength drained, he watched his fellows charged in. Swords raised and voices shouting, just as he once did- none giving in to the fear inside their hearts. He heard them cry, as his body struggled to rise and rally beside them.

The Dark Lord must be stopped, for the sake of the Faith, the light, and the gods.

Yet lying against the soil- his limbs gave way. His chest grew still, and it took all his strength to stare and watch.

As his mind grew dull: watching as body after body crumpled to the earth in vain. Those black magics of untold power swept through armor and flesh, carrying on as if the grim reaper of the world itself.

The battle pitched, and fires roared. Men fell, horses kicked and screamed, and the tide of bodies pushed onward. The dead did not tire, only the living.

Desperate howls and screams, the ringing of distant bells. Should the Skeleton know of such things, it might recognize the wail of a crying child. It might recognize the scream of a desperate woman, or the wide face of terror.

But still, its arm gave little pause as it lifted and swung.

And swung.

And swung.

And swung-

That terrible laughter never ceased, as the last man tumbled to the dirt with a curdled scream of agony. Even the great Dragon, from the skies above did falter and heave its last.

Yet somehow still, the man found he could still watch. Horror filling him with a terrible and crushing silence, as sight held even as breath had long since left. His faith was strong! His Gods awaited him, yet still he lay upon the soil and wastes of the earth and stone: Trapped and unable to flee as death intended.

Then, at the deepest levels of his own despair, the voice crept within him. A slinking serpent of blackened and rotten filth, winding and slithering deeper into ever inch and fiber of his being. Repeating one word, with an endless mantra:

Obey.

As the Skeleton marched, it felt the warmth that dripped along its bones. It saw the stains upon its steel, and the rot that covered what little flesh remained.

The Skeleton remembered, if only for the barest of instants. It remembered everything with a terrible and gripping horror.

He felt it then... it was gone.

Dust, coal, and smoke to the howling winds. Further forgotten pieces to be added among the rest, trampled beneath bone and whispered command.

What remained in place were the barest cinders, each flickering horror within rounded cases of bone:

All it knew was red.