Riggs turned his back to the bandits, trusting in his armour to protect him. A cold wind scythed through him and sent a shiver through his body.

Those are your knees quaking, boy.

The bone horror gave a threatening, dry rattle.

The scared man responded with a deep bellow that rattled the tavern’s windows.

The nightmare hesitated, stunned by the defiant roar.

Riggs charged, raising his shield in a high guard. He swung hard, but the horror scampered aside, the sword’s sharp edge chopping into the tavern’s wall instead. Quick as lightning, the scorpion tail shot out and a large, bone stinger drove into the wood of his shield. He twisted his shield and hauled it towards him before the stinger could dislodge itself. Claws gouged across the tavern as he dragged the creature within reach, but it pounced onto his shield and he stumbled back from its weight.

The claws of six skeletal, human hands clicked as they wrapped around the iron rim of his shield. The bony spear-tip dislodged from it and, this close, he realized the horror’s tail was a long, sinuous human spine.

Behind him, the bandits cried out in fear and alarm.

Those fools don’t even know what they’re working with...

The tail lashed again and again, angling around his shield entirely. Riggs grunted as the plates protecting his sword arm dented from blow after blow, thankful it failed to find any gaps in his armour. The tail blurred past his parries and ripostes, leaving bruises and welts even where it failed to penetrate his armour. Desperation locked his senses to the tail alone, but he could not stop it or destroy it.

Riggs roared in frustration and fear, lowered his shield as the creature clung to it, and charged at the tavern.

The creature’s tail shot past his sword and at his face. Despite being mere bone, it punched through his iron helm, split flesh, and scraped off his thick skull.

Roaring, dazed, and bleeding, Riggs crushed the creature between his shield and the wall. Dry bones snapped and popped. One clawed hand tore at him, the thin scalpels sneaking past chainmail and rending the gambeson and flesh of his arm. Two human skulls chomped at him over the top of his shield, melded into ribcages at an unnatural angle.

Still roaring, he brought the hilt of the sword down onto the skulls.

Crack!

Crack!

CRACK!

CRACK!

Until the skulls shattered into unrecognizable pieces and the bones dropped to the ground, lifeless once more.

How can they even control such things?

The battered smith spat out acrid bone dust as he turned, wearily snapping bits of bone and arrow from his splintered shield. He hoped it would last long enough to close against the bandits. He needed to draw their attention, couldn't let them finish off Tarley.

Riggs frowned as he spotted arrows hanging in the air, as if caught in a spider’s web. He blinked blood and sweat from his eyes, but the arrows still floated there. The torch lay deeper in in the village and, in its illumination, he saw the eviscerated remains of a few bandits. He heard the remaining bandits routing, running for their lives towards the forest. Only a dozen more zombies remained, some fresh, most old, and all marching towards him.

“Warrior, get your friend inside,” said an accented voice, enunciating each word fluently, but with care.

A hooded figure stepped in front of him and the arrows dropped to the ground with a dull clatter. A silvery staff gleamed in their hands and they spun it before them, leaving a glowing green ring in the air. The staff took on the same rich, green glow as the stranger used it to trace symbols in the air within the circle. The earth trembled as they thumped their staff into the ground and the glowing symbols burst.

The earth groaned and churned beneath the zombies as they shambled towards them. An earthen maw dragged its victims down as if they were fed into a gristmill. Bones snapped, popped, cracked, crunched, as their legs were dragged under. Those that fell onto all fours had their arms and legs mashed and swallowed.

Within seconds, the smell of freshly ploughed dirt mingled with that of a slaughterhouse to overpower the scent of rot and decay that otherwise dominated the air. Riggs tasted acid and bile as they rose in his throat, but he pushed them down along with the nausea and disgust he felt.

“Warrior,” the accented voice snapped Riggs out of his morbid focus, “Get your friend inside. I will be with you shortly.”

The smith did as he was told, fumbling as he sheathed the sword. Cradling Tarley in his free arm, he carried her back to the tavern and banged twice on the door to the signal the all clear, hoping they wouldn’t hesitate to open it this time. Arguing ensued within and he strained his ears to focus on that instead of the noises coming from behind him.

They were my neighbours not a week ago. Now...

The heinous grinding noises continued. He trembled, and this time admitted to himself that the cold had nothing to do with it.

The door finally swung open and Riggs ducked under the post to enter with his wounded friend. “Light a torch, Tarley needs patching.” Ritso nodded, leaning his chipped logging axe against the wall before rushing ahead.

Riggs felt around one of the tavern’s tables. It was still sticky with blood from its last patient, but clear enough to ease Tarley onto it. He removed his shield and helm, wincing as the movement tore open old and new injuries. Now feeling the pain as his adrenaline slowed. “Shaya, please let her fare better than the table’s last patient.”

“You call that all clear?” Garen said behind him. “You stupid oaf. The bandits are still out there.”

Ritso managed to light a candle with some steel and tinder, then jumped in, “Captain, Kirk and Avi are upstairs on lookout.”

Riggs nodded his thanks to the stout lumberjack and turned to the captain. “It’s fine Garen-”

“Don’t tell me what’s fine!” The grey-haired captain snapped, the wan light emphasizing his weathered, aged features as he stepped forward and jabbed a pale, ochre finger into Riggs’ chest. Candlelight reflected off a small militia badge which the old captain had started wearing again. “You don’t give the orders around here, you dim-wit!”

The big man shrunk back, stumbling over the table’s bench. “S-sorry C-c-captain.”

Ritso said nothing, focusing on lighting a torch. The tavern’s door closed and the smell of cinders filled the air as a torch was lit, but not by Ritso.

All eyes turned to the stranger.

A cowled head scanned the room, focusing on the cowering smith and the bellicose, smaller man. It waited a second, expecting some response from the large man. A moment passed and, seeing no response, the hooded figure leaned its staff against the wall and moved towards them.

Shrugging back their cloak revealed a short, lithe person that wore a sleeveless brigandine coat for protection. They otherwise wore a simple tunic, loose fitting pants and supple boots. All of their clothes and armour were well worn and oft repaired, the cloak a motley assortment of dyed blues from its countless patches.

Two slender hands lowered the cowl to reveal an angular, androgynous face and completely bald head. Their warm, umber skin bore no scars or blemishes, but Riggs recognized the movements of someone battle hardened. Riggs had never seen eyes like theirs before - the pupils haloed with the dawn’s light - and something in their face reminded him, painfully, of someone who bore great responsibility.

Those inhuman eyes turned to the old man. “The bandits are routed, for now. You can stop berating the warrior who saved your lives.”

Garen stood up straight as the stranger approached, then sputtered and fumed as he was brushed aside with one hand. The whispers throughout the tavern intensified at this slight, many of the villagers uttering the same word: Warden.

“Haven’t seen one of them cloaks around here in generations,” the old man spat, “thought your kind stopped your helpful wanderings – or did you just dye that cloak to give yourself an unearned title?”

Ritso lit his torch and held it up, illuminating enough of the room to reveal a small village worth of people crammed into the tavern’s common room, families sleeping alongside their pigs and caged chickens. The people looked as dirty as their animals and bore injuries ranging from minor scrapes to recently lost limbs, but at least none appeared malnourished or fevered. If the smell of so many unwashed bodies in one space offended the stranger, their face showed no signs of it.

The short, stocky lumberjack held the torch closer to Tarley, allowing the stranger to study the young woman’s injuries. They poked and prodded at Tarley’s wounds, much to her discomfort.

"Warrior,” the bald head turned to Riggs, then looked up, startled by his size and appearance. Even hunched in on himself, he towered well over six feet. His hulking, stout frame was further emphasized by the double-layered chainmail surcoat he wore over his quilted armour. Haloed eyes widened at the wrought plates riveted to the chainmail over his right arm. A heavy weapon harness covered much of his torso, with loops and slings available for a variety of weapons, though only a longsword and dagger at his hips occupied any of the available spaces.

Chainmail sagged in several areas from broken links, the quilted armour sat discoloured and unpadded in spots, and the plates were dented and damaged in multiple places, never hammered back smooth. The man mirrored the state of his armour. Dried blood darkened and matted unkempt hair, ginger stubble covered an unshaven face with broad, heavy features, and dark bags hung from watery, grey eyes. Wherever his deep, russet brown skin was visible, it was scarred from stabs, slashes, bites, claws, and burns, or discoloured by bruises of varying age. A fresh, grisly wound ran across his forehead, only just starting to clot. An oft broken nose droned as he breathed, ignorant of the stench of sweat, blood, and death that clung to the man.

“Ah,” the stranger cleared their throat at the awkward pause. Despite his hideous appearance, the Warden didn’t grimace. “Close your hand around this wound and grip it tightly. Not to your full strength, it wouldn’t do to snap the leg.”

Riggs obeyed without hesitation, clamping down on the wound with a calloused hand. The stranger walked to the other side of the table to be closer to Tarley’s broken shoulder, Ritso releasing her hand with a squeeze and making space.

The captain scoffed, “You follow any order given to you, don’t you boy?”