Vedek

Vedek had only been to Spiral City once. It was for an assembly of the Council of Sovereigns that he was observing. Normally those meetings were held in the neutral territory of High Regent’s Hold far off the west coast of the Eastern Continent. At the time, the Hold was under renovation and the freshly crowned Emperor of Spiral City insisted the Council take place in his palace. Vedek had just reached maturity and had never been that far afield of Fae’Riam. The outline of the city matched his memory, but the content may have shifted so much it would be like a new place to him.

Spiral City had many towns and farm villages connecting to it’s walls. Many of these were taken over by military companies here for the Clash. Onakie insisted they skirt around the main road so that their group would go unnoticed. She knew an entrance to the city that would have fewer eyes on it, the Dusted Quarter. It would nearly take another day to travel the city’s outskirts to reach that particular entrance.

Accompanied by Frost, Vedek sold their horses so that they may finally have coin for food. Many of the farms had their resources bought or bullied from them by the transient soldiers, but the woman who bought their horses was willing to part with some fresh bread, goat cheese, and ears of maize that were too small to sell. Frost eagerly loaded this meal into a provided basket. His stomach had been howling since leaving the Hambrientorío. Vedek was worried he’d have to stay the wecher’s hand so that there would be food for the others.

“It’s likely a side-effect of my new strength.” Frost wiped salivation from the corners of his mouth.

“And do you understand what this new strength is?” Vedek took the basket from Frost’s hands. They departed on foot to rejoin the others on a nearby hill.

Frost touched his chest. He had been doing it often since Janni had burned it. “It is my own…I can say that. I think the badogiak brought me into my prime. Perhaps this is as strong as I’ll ever be!”

He grinned grandly at Vedek, but Vedek was not convinced. There was a waiver in Frost’s voice that only those looking for it would hear. He worried for Frost’s safety. Still, Frost’s enthusiasm was disarming, so Vedek would drop the issue until he had visible reason to worry.

It was a relief to have Spiral City in sight. Today was clear and cool and full of promise. The kind of day he’d rather take a seat with this basket of goods and make a picnic out of it. With the urgency of still reaching Tauren Row, they would have to eat while they walk.

“Can you see that library from here?” Frost also had his eyes on the city.

“Which library?” Vedek scanned the wall of red buildings.

Frost was incredulous. He looked at Vedek like he expected him to addled. “The one we’re to meet Cole and Rerume at!”

Vedek had no excuse. He had forgotten, plain and simple. In his mind, Spiral City had been a place to deliver Odile to, not a place to reunite with their prior allies. He shut his eyes and replayed the memory of their promise at Outpost Onx. It had been more than two weeks since that day. How could they possibly adopt Cole and Rerume into their current circumstances?

He didn’t speak again, and bore Frost’s judgmental gaze until they reached the others on the hill. Odile was seated on Azeroth’s shoulders. Neither party seemed to think this arrangement odd, but in Fae’Riam they would draw every eye on the street. Onakie took one of the ears of maize and ate it whole. She pointed out an overgrown miller’s trail that would bring them closer while avoiding the crowds.

Vedek followed the path with his eyes as it weaved through several grain fields. He only saw one citizen on this trail, a farmer on a slow-moving donkey cart bearing several large barrels. Movement in the fields caught Vedek’s eye. Stalks of grain were being pushed aside en mass. Two-legged shadows were advancing through the field. Vedek scowled and looked to the field’s other edge, and in doing so he saw the trails of flattened crop these shadows had left in their wake. He did not know how many there were, but they were all converging on the man in the cart.

“Do you see that?” Vedek muttered. Perhaps the others couldn’t, not without an Elden’s eyes. “I think that man is about to be attacked.”

“Attacked” was all Frost needed to hear to immediately abandon the group and sprint towards the stray farmer. Vedek’s jaw hung open and Azeroth’s eyebrow shot up skeptically. None had processed how quickly Frost had moved until he was already at the base of the hill.

“Take her.” Azeroth passed Odile to Onakie. “And save me some of that cheese.”

Vedek realized Azeroth had just volunteered the two of them to chase after Frost and deal with this unknown threat. He wanted to remind the orc that he was still lacking a weapon, but Azeroth sprinted away nearly as fast as Frost. Vedek dropped the basket and gave chase as well.

Some of the stalks of grain surpassed Vedek’s head, and the wind was blowing just hard enough to have them form a waving tunnel over the miller’s trail. Vedek heard a panicked scream and doubled his pace. Azeroth’s green body became absorbed into the amber wall of grain. Vedek kept to the trail, his ears turning in the direction of the scream and the direction he knew the shadows were coming from. He found the farmer, a lanky human with an invisibly thin mustache, cowering behind the wheel of his cart.

The man gave a small yelp upon seeing Vedek. He shouted in New Queztal: “Who are you?”

“I am Bréag.” Vedek answered in the same tongue. “Where is the danger?”

The man pointed to the other side of the cart with a shaky finger. There lay a dead duende, or what was left of a dead duende. The body was too rotted to be only just killed. The body was nearly ripped in two, exposing the maggots feasting on the meat within. Vedek didn’t know what to make of it. He turned to ask the farmer, but the sound of hurried footsteps brought his attention to farther up the trail. Four warriors approached and Vedek recognized each of them: Dirk Izelny, the twins Lyr and Lyn, and the coatlmade called Trub, short for Trouble.

“The Lion’s Claw?” Vedek stood straight.

The quartet halted at the cart. Dirk consoled the farmer while Lyr inspected the body. Lyn looked into the adjacent field with a tense look. Her blade had likely been drawn well before they reached this area. Only Trub stopped to acknowledge Vedek.

“Have we m-met?”

Too many thoughts were swirling in Vedek’s mind to respond quickly. He stammered an incomplete answer before simply covering the bottom half of his face with his hand.

“That elden from the barbartus revolt.” Dirk stroked his beard in awe. “What a condensed world we live in. Do you know what’s happening here?”

“Not as much as I would like.” Vedek confessed. “My companions aren’t here, though they should be.”

“The beastman went into the field!” The farmer shouted out. He stabbed a finger at the duende corpse. “He did that with just his hands and went into the field after the other undead.”

“Other undead?” Vedek pivoted on his heel to the farmer.

“We’ve been tracking them.” Lyr’s voice made Vedek jump. He still had that sedated tone to his speech.

“Finding their place of origin. Unlike the barbartus, we had better luck this time.”

The wall of grain was parted by scaled hands. A coatlmade woman, her scales peeling off one by one, shambled towards them, arms raised. Lyn jammed her sword into the zombie’s gut until it appeared on the other side. The coatlmade went slack and collapsed beside the duende.

“There’s a necromancer afield of Spiral City, blighting corpses and turning them into this.” Dirk twirled a warhammer in his hands. The handle was long enough to be used as a walking stick.

Two more zombies appeared and they were dispatched just as easily as the woman. Vedek had remained rooted where he stood until a severed arm flew out of the field in his general direction. From the field emerged the head of Frost, a human body held aloft in his right arm. He slammed the body on the ground with a satisfied snarl. He wasn’t even shifted. One by one, he noticed those watching him.

“There you are Bréag. Are these the ones we met when we first united?”

Vedek gave a mute nod. From behind Frost, Azeroth emerged from the grain as well, wiping foul blood off his hands as he did. He was momentarily surprised by the Lion’s Claw as well and gave an awkward gesture of greeting to each.

“How many are there?” Dirk approached the duo.

“A few.” Azeroth answered as he quested for a cloth to clean his hands with. “Damned easy to break though.”

The wall of grain was breached again, a greater wave of at least six zombies. The undead made no vocalizations and all they had for gesture was to reach out for the living bodies in front of them. Vedek, Trub, and the farmer stood back as none of them were equipped for this. Frost quickly lifted one by the legs and used it as a club to dispatch two others. Dirk’s hammer cracked into the skull of a dwarf like him. Lyn and Lyr stood their ground with their shortswords. Many of the undead had existing wounds that a bladed weapon could exploit. Azeroth seemed resistant to fighting, namely because of how much rank residue the undead left on those they came in contact with.

The skirmish ended with no damage done to those on the side of the living. This provincial trail was now clogged with corpses. Vedek glanced to the hill to confirm Onakie and Odile were still there. Perhaps Odile could see all this unfold and was relaying it to her Keeper.

“Should we m-move?” Trub asked his leader in a begging tone.

Dirk wiped sweat from his brow and blood from his hammer. “I do not think the threat is ended, but we can move this innocent to safety. What is your name, young human?”

“Bors.” The farmer squeaked out. “I work for the city. I was delivering the cerveza to the different camps for the Feast of Equals.”

Lyr knocked on one of the barrels and gently nudged it. They heard the sloshing contents within. “Why take this backroad?”

Bors put himself between Lyr and the cart. “Has to be done. If I carried it out in the open then I’d be ambushed by more than undead for it. I’m to ensure each entrant gets exactly one cask to share amongst their soldiers.”

Lyr’s expression became unreadable again. If that benign explanation made him suspicious then he wouldn’t share.

Vedek’s ears twitched as the field rustled. “More are coming.”

The group stood their ground again, prepared for another wave of undead.

The field erupted in flame. An immediate wall of fire and heat that drove the fighters into backing away. Bors’ donkey, silent for most of the altercation, brayed loudly and yanked the cart into motion. Bors had to chase after his cargo as the others held fast to assess this new threat.

The flames quickly consumed themselves and faded into nothingness. What remained was a cone of blackened grain extending to the middle of the field. Vedek counted ten blackened bodies of more undead lying limp amongst the ashes. At the end of this trail of destruction stood Rerume.

“There he is.” Azeroth remarked. He sounded annoyed.

“My friend!” Frost called out.

He ran to the coatlmade, his arm outstretched for a greeting. Rerume took a defensive stance, brandishing the stinger spear he claimed from Solind Vissima. Frost stopped himself and tilted his head questioningly at Rerume, who only looked back with a grimace of disbelief. Rerume was haggard, hungry, yet still had that burning conviction in his eyes.

The spear lowered. “I must see to their burial.”

That was all he said. No greeting. No acknowledgment for his intensity. When he walked it was with a slight limp. He gathered the bodies of the undead in a pile in the center of the burned section of the field.

The only one he spoke to during this was Vedek. “Did you only just arrive?”

“Yes. You as well?” Vedek answered.

“Indeed. There was a delay with my journey. I continued encountering these packs of undead wandering the wilderness. There must be no delay in finding where this necromancer dwells.”

Once the corpses were gathered Rerume unleashed another breath of fire to immolate them.

“We’re drawing a lot of attention to ourselves here…” Azeroth muttered to Vedek.

He was right. The smoke of Rerume’s funeral pyre was no doubt noticeable. Onakie was already descending the hill with Odile on her shoulder. The Lion’s Claw were whispering amongst themselves as well. Vedek felt himself pulled in two directions. One to keep his promise to Rerume and the other to safely deliver Odile.

“You said you had found the necromancer?” Vedek asked Dirk.

Dirk was likely having the same thinking as Vedek. “We did not see him personally, but there is a Teotl structure in a barren area northwest of here. It is riddled with corpses like this.”

“S-some sp-poke to us. T-told us t-to t-turn back.” Trub shuddered at the memory.

“Show me where this lair is.” Rerume turned away from his comrades to speak to the Lion’s Claw directly.

“The horde there is greater than any one man could handle.” Dirk dismissed the request. “We came here hoping to enlist any of the dozens of soldiers here for the Clash, but none wish to spare their best fighters until the Emperor is decided.”

“Everyone's acting dense.” Lyn barked.

Frost stepped to the middle of the discussion. He was counting on his fingers. “There are four in the Lion’s Claw and at least five of our group once we unite with Cole. Perhaps Onakie as well. That would make for ten capable warriors. United we dispatched this threat without wound and I wasn’t even armed. It should be enough.”

Frost had merely vocalized what had been brewing in Vedek and Dirk’s minds. The lack of immediate disagreement was all Rerume needed. “We’ll set out immediately.”

Once again, Dirk denied Rerume. “You’re half dead, and despite her station, that makes you of no use to your Divine. Do any of you have boarding in the city?”

Azeroth, Frost, and Vedek collectively shook their heads.

“Then you can share our headquarters until this alliance is ended. We lack for spare beds, but we can clear some floor space for your bedrolls. We can go there now and be prepared to leave at dawn tomorrow.”

Vedek heard the stomps of heavy hooves up the trail. He cursed internally before clearing his throat.

“There is something you should know, about our circumstances for being here…”

Onakie arrived. Odile was sat high on her shoulder, looking down at all of them with her electric blue eyes.

“…We have other duties to settle first.”