by Pirateaba
And another Antinium seized the first and threw him off Erin. She gasped as the sword fell to the ground and rolled away as the two Antinium crashed into chairs, fighting, punching and kicking in the darkness.
Erin scrambled away and struck a table. She ran to a shuttered window and threw it open. The moonlight illuminated the room just in time for her to see one of the two Workers mount the other. The Antinium seized his struggling opponent’s head and twisted with all four arms.
The neck broke. The Worker lay still. The other Worker stood up and stared at Erin.
She held the frying pan and jar of acid in shaking hands.
“Stay back! I’m warning you!”
The Worker walked towards Erin. She raised the frying pan and he stopped. The Worker raised all four arms.
“Please. I mean you no harm.”
The words were familiar. The way of speaking was familiar. Erin hesitated.
“…Pawn?”
“I am not Pawn.”
The Worker shook his head. But he was not Ksmvr either. He knelt before Erin suddenly, and she nearly tossed the jar of acid. But the Worker made no move. He spoke to her, voice loud in the silence.
“I am Knight.”
“Knight?”
He nodded. The Worker stared up at Erin.
“I have named myself. I have chosen. I am individual, first and last of my kind. I am Knight and no other is like me. And I am here to protect you. We are here to protect you.”
Erin stared at him. The frying pan loosened in her grip and she nearly dropped it. Her mind was spinning. She stared at Knight. There was something familiar about him, too.
“I—I don’t know you. I never—”
Knight straightened.
“Please, Erin Solstice. You must remain calm. We are here to protect you.”
“We?”
Movement. Suddenly Erin saw it outside the window. She threw caution to the wind and raced outside, brushing past Knight. There she stopped.
Antinium. Workers. They stood around the inn, arms folded, or holding weapons. Swords, maces, axes—and not just those. Rolling pins, rocks, large branches…even a large vase in one case. They stared silently at Erin as she froze in place.
“Who—”
Knight emerged from the inn and bowed his head to Erin.
“The dead are coming. Please remain inside. We will protect you with our lives.”
She looked at him.
“You? But who are you? Where’s Pawn?”
“He was kept in the Hive by the Prognugator. He remains. But we have come. We have chosen. We are individual.”
“Individual?”
Knight nodded. In front of Erin, a Worker turned. He bowed to her, low, as far as his stiff exoskeleton would permit.
“I have chosen. I am Bishop.”
Another Antinium turned, and then another.
“I too chose. I have decided. My name is Vladimir.”
“I am Calabrian.”
“I am Emanuel.”
“Call me Garry.”
“I wish to be known as Milner-Barry.”
“Belgrade. I will die for you.”
“We will all die for you. I am Jose.”
They spoke, one by one, in the faint moonlight. Antinium looked at Erin, all alike on the outside. But each one different, each one individual.
They were all familiar to her. And only now did Erin realize. She knew them. She knew them all. They had never had names, but she knew their faces, the way they played. She knew them.
They were her chess club.
Thirty odd Workers stood on the hilltop, ringing the inn, waiting. Erin could barely speak. She felt it. A surge of terrible emotion—whether fear or happiness or sadness it was impossible to say. But she knew something had happened. That had all chosen names.
But that was only half of the question. The other half burned in her fiercely. She turned to Knight. The Antinium was staring into the darkness, splashes of green blood still coating his carapace.
“Why are you all here? Why now? Why tonight? What—what’s happening?”
He opened his mandibles to reply. And that was when the first zombie appeared out of the night and tried to take a bite out of Erin’s face. Toren leapt out of the darkness, crashing into the zombie and the two rolled down the hill.
Erin screamed. More bodies shuffled and ran through the grass as the Workers moved to intercept them. And then the night was filled with the dead, and Erin found herself fighting for her life.
—-
“Fall back! Fall back!”
Zevara screamed as Skinner grabbed a Drake and pulled his scales and skin off him like a child pulling a wrapper off a bit of candy. The horrific white face grinned down at her, sunken crimson eyes staring around layers of folded dead flesh.
She tried to raise her sword to slash at it, but her arm refused to move. Zevara had fought countless monsters, had faced death and come close to it several times. But the terror that Skinner projected dwarfed anything she had ever felt before.
Zevara retreated, trembling, as Skinner’s hand swept around and grabbed a struggling guardsman. The female Gnoll had only a moment to howl in fear and agony before she was dead.
All around Zevara, guardsmen were retreating or dying. The undead flooded through the gates around Skinner, slaughtering the helpless warriors. Only the Antinium fought on, Ksmvr and the five remaining Soldiers blockading one street, but even they were falling back. No one could fight Skinner, and every time one of his hands swung down, someone died.
Zevara prayed they died. To live without skin—she hoped they died instantly, rather than imagine there was still life in the silent piles of bones and intestines and skin that lay on the ground.
Skinner grinned at her. His folds of thick white skin grinned at her too, the faces of the dead stretched to canvas his body.
She had to run. Zevara felt it in her bones, in the marrow. But she was Captain of the Watch. She couldn’t run. She had to fight. But her body wasn’t listening to her mind.
Skinner loomed over her. He tossed what remained of the Gnoll to the ground and raised his hand towards Zevara. She dove out of the way, dropping her sword, and the palm smashed into the ground next to her.
The impact knocked the Drake sideways, but she scrambled away. The red spots. It was the red spots on Skinner’s hand. Touch those, and your skin would be peeled away. She had to keep her distance. She had to run—
Too late, Zevara saw the other hand circling around. She was running right into it. She tried to stop, but it was too late. Skinner closed his hand around Zevara’s scales—
“Relc attack!”
Something blurred past Zevara and stabbed into the hand. Dead skin fell around spear tip as a green Drake grabbed both spear and Zevara and ran nimbly past Skinner. Zevara gaped as Relc, Senior Guardsmen of the Watch grinned toothily at her and twirled the spear.
“Heya Captain! Mind if I take this one on?”
“Relc!”
It was a warning. Relc turned his head and both he and Zevara hit the ground as Skinner swiped at them. His hand smashed into a wooden building instead and shook the foundations. Skinner stared at both Drakes and Zevara felt her scales growing cold with fear. But Relc just shook himself and bared his sharp teeth.
“Well, isn’t this fun? Back up, Captain. I’m going to need some room for this.”
So saying, Relc jumped and rolled, running back into the melee towards Skinner. A zombie popped up on his right side, but Relc raised his spear and ran the undead human through. He kicked the zombie’s corpse off his blade into a skeleton, punched a ghoul to the ground, and looked up as Skinner’s other hand swept towards him.
Relc raised his spear and met the hand as it flew at him. His spear’s tip stabbed rapidly into the open red sores in Skinner’s hand. The monster jerked, and for the first time Zevara thought she heard a sound come from the creature’s mouth.
No—not the mouth. It came from inside Skinner, a
high-pitched shriek that echoed across the city.
It was deafeningly loud, but barely within Zevara’s auditory range. She clapped her hands to her ears and Relc staggered back, doing the same.
Skinner swiped at Relc, and caught him on the leg with open palm. Relc roared and stabbed down with his spear, and Skinner let go just as quickly. The Drake staggered backwards, and Zevara saw part of the scales on his leg had been stripped away.
Relc roared and stabbed and cut at Skinner’s arm, but the monster brought his limb out of harm’s way.
Again, Skinner fixed Relc with his crimson gaze. But though Zevara saw Relc shudder, he gritted his teeth and fought through the magic affecting him. He raised his spear and dashed towards Skinner, cutting and stabbing as he ran across the monster’s side.
Chunks of flesh sloughed to the ground as Skinner swung his hands at Relc. The Drake dodged away, keeping too close to Skinner’s body to be caught. The massive undead suddenly rolled and Relc had to dodge away before being squashed.
“You bastard!”
Relc ran through the undead, stabbing and knocking them aside like flies. The zombies and skeletons weren’t able to even slow him down, and the ghouls he nearly dispatched with a spear strike to the neck or head.
Suddenly free of Skinner’s gaze, the guardsmen around Zevara turned and formed another line. The Drake Captain found another sword and sliced a zombie apart as Relc blurred towards them.
Faster, stronger, and unaffected by fear. That was Relc, Senior Guardsman, the strongest guard in the city. Perhaps the world. A Level 33 [Spearmaster].
He paused in front of Zevara, panting. She saw red blood running from his leg and grabbed a healing potion from her belt.
“Here!”
“Thanks.”
He nodded and smashed the bottle against his leg. The purple liquid ran into the gaping wound and he sighed.
“Damn. This isn’t good.”
“Do you know what that thing is?”
Zevara pointed to Skinner as the monster slowly rolled back upright, the undead around him forming a living wall. Relc shook his head.
“Something ugly? But it’s strong. All that dead flesh is like armor. I need to slice it away to get at what’s underneath. But one touch of those hands—”
“Can you kill it?”
Relc paused, and then grinned at Zevara.
“I can. Maybe. Probably. But give me some of those Antinium just to be safe.”
“The Antinium? Why—”
Relc pointed. Ksmvr was slicing apart zombies as the four Soldiers still alive covered his back. Even as Skinner rolled back upright and stared at Ksmvr, he kept fighting, undeterred by the crimson stare.
“The Ants are immune to whatever he’s doing. So am I?”
“Why’s that?”
Relc grinned and tapped his head with one claw.
“[Indomitable Will]. Anyone without a similar Skill should fall back. This thing—it’s projecting fear.”
“I got that. Can you take it out with just them?”
“I can try. But give me more archers and mages to get rid of the undead. I can’t have them on my back and that thing.”
“Just stop it for now while I call a retreat. We’ll set up another street and give you a chance—”
Zevara stopped and Relc turned. Skinner was moving. The giant creature stared hard at Relc as the Drake raised his spear. But suddenly, Skinner turned. He pulled himself around and began moving back through the crowd of undead.
Relc crowed as Skinner pulled himself away. He twirled his spear and broke a skeleton’s skull with the butt end as he shouted at Skinner.
“Yeah, that’s right! Run! Run! Finally met someone with too many scales for ya, huh? Run away and…wait a second.”
Relc blinked. Skinner was leaving. Not just retreating; he was pulling himself back out the gates while a wall of undead protected his ‘back’.
“It’s…leaving?”
Zevara stared at Skinner in confusion. Why was he going?
“He must sense you’re a threat.”
Relc swore and Zevara nearly spat fire at Pisces as the mage appeared out of thin air. The human flinched, but pointed at Skinner as Relc glared at him.
“This creature is highly intelligent, guardsmen. It won’t fight anything that can resist its fear effect and poses a credible threat. Perhaps it could win, but it won’t risk that.”
“Why?”
Pisces shrugged.
“Most of the more valuable undead specimens have some kind of survival function built into it. I surmise this being may be the same.”
“Being? It’s not undead?”
“No.”
Relc grabbed Pisces as Zevara stared at him. The Drake shook the mage none too gently.
“Okay, but where is that thing going? Is it going back into the ruins or do we have to worry about reinforcements now? Even without that monster we’re still up to our ears in undead!”
“I don’t know! I don’t know!”
Pisces fought to get Relc to release him. He shouted as the undead resumed their attack on the lines of guardsmen.
“Perhaps it seeks to wear us down first! Or maybe it goes after easier prey! I can’t tell!”
Relc released Pisces with disgust.
“Well that’s just great. If it comes back with another horde, we’re cooked. But what could it want if it wants more victims? There’s no cities or villages around here. So where—”
He broke off, eyes widening. Zevara looked at him as Relc turned towards the south. He breathed the words.
“Oh no.”
Pisces looked at Relc’s face, and then south too. He blinked in sudden comprehension and his face turned slightly pale.
“Erin.”
1.43
Why do the dead try to kill the living? Is it hatred?
Do they seek to defile the living, to drag them into the same unending torment of their lives? Do they envy those who still draw breath? Or is it a greater mystery? Do the undead simply want others to join them, to add to their endless numbers?
Maybe—perhaps—the dead simply resent the living. Maybe they remember the past, and it hurts them. Or that they can understand the living and wish to ease their suffering.
It could be they just know how ugly they are and don’t want anyone to look.
Erin screamed as an almost completely decomposed Gnoll came close. He had no face. Nothing that she would use that word for. Just—rot. Horrible, black innards that still twitched and slapped together wetly as he lurched at her.
A hand seized the zombie around the remains of his ruined head. Ignoring completely the flesh and other things that squelched around his fist, Knight tightened his grip until something crunched and the zombie jerked and fell still. The Worker dropped the corpse to the ground and kicked the body away. He stood, protectively shielding Erin at the entrance of the inn.
Around the hill, the dead were struggling with the living. But there were no screams. At least, the Antinium did not scream. The dead did. They howled, or made ghastly sucking sounds or sometimes groaned, but the screaming was what terrified Erin. She felt they shouldn’t be able to. The dead should be silent.
But they weren’t. If anything, it was the Workers who more closely resembled silent reapers. They moved in unison, fighting, blocking, forming a living line as they fought against the undead. Sometimes they spoke, but with a terrifying calmness of their own.
“Die.”
“Suffer.”
“Perish.”
Two Antinium gripped a zombie by each arm and tore him apart. Another seized a skeleton with two hands and ripped out its ribs with the other two.
They fought like machines. Uncaring machines that took apart the undead like a child taking apart legos. Sometimes it was a clean dissection. Other times they smashed the dead bodies to make them fall apart.
But for all that, they were like children. None of the Workers knew how to fight. They were extremely stron
g, but clumsy. And the undead may have been rotting, but they were all killers.
A Worker staggered back, arms grasping as a skeleton slid forwards, bashing at the Antinium’s head with a mace. It nimbly dodged the Worker as it strove to seize a bony arm and raised its mace to crush the Antinium’s skull.
“No!”
The skeleton looked up and a flying frying pan crashed into its face. The yellow flames in its eyes dimmed and the Antinium took the chance to seize it.
Erin watched the Worker begin to dismantle the skeleton and stared at her hand. She hadn’t even realized she’d thrown the frying pan. But more undead were charging up the hill towards the inn.
“Stay behind me, please.”
Knight pushed Erin back as more undead crashed into the line of Antinium, this time from the back. The Antinium wavered as they struggled to hold the dead back. Erin saw one of the Workers slip and fall as a ghoul tackled him. The undead began tearing at him.
He had a name. He’d told it to Erin. Magnus. Magnus as in Magnus Carlsen, a name taken from the World Chess Champion. He fell down and Erin saw his blood. It was green.
“No!”
She tried to run forwards, but Knight seized Erin by the waist and lifted her up.
“You must not. You must not put yourself in danger. We are here for your protection.”
Magnus fell, shielding his face. Erin pulled harder, but Knight refused to let go.
“He’s dying!”
“Yes. The enemy surrounds us. We are at a disadvantage. This must be rectified.”
Knight pulled Erin back and raised his hand. He spoke calmly.
“[Defense Formation].”
Magnus thrust the ghoul back and raised his hand, ignoring the green blood that splattered the ground around him.
“[Attack Formation].”
He collapsed silently as a ghoul finished tearing through his exoskeleton. The undead Drake pulled something out of Magnus and opened his mouth to consume it.
A scream of rage preceded a jar of acid by only a second. The ghoul stumbled backwards, clawing at his face as the acid melted his flesh away. He fell back, and another Antinium calmly hit him with a mop, sending him slumping to the ground.
Erin felt the effects of the two Skills hit her as she raised another jar of acid and threw it. She felt lighter—so much lighter! And it seemed as though she had suddenly grown a pair of eyes on the back of her head. She was aware of the undead around her, just as she was aware of how the other Antinium were moving.
