Edmund could hardly digest what had happened when a ghoulish roar broke the silence of the night. The sound was unnatural, guttural.
His eyes, straining to locate the source of sound.
Every nerve in his body snapped to alertness. He jumped to his feet, his hand reaching for his sword hilt, which he gripped with a feral intensity.
From the shadows, a nightmarish sight emerged—a mass of writhing, twisted bodies spilling forth like a wave.
They moved as a single unit, a monstrous entity, driven by an insatiable hunger that gleamed in their red glowing, lifeless eyes.
These were the Unliving, an army of the damned animated by forces beyond mortal understanding.
Their flesh hung in tatters, skin grey and waxy, with veins dark and pulsing just beneath the surface.
Before he could fully realise the terror that fell upon him, the monsters were on him.
A wall of ravenous jaws land clawing hands surged forward, their eyes fixed hungrily on him, each seeking to tear his flesh apart.
Instinct took over, and Edmund drew his sword with a metallic snick.
He swung it in a wide, frantic arc, hordes of Undying flanking him, but Edmund hack each other.
Feeling the resistance of steel ripping through decayed flesh and bone, the shudder of each blow travelling up his arm.
Blow after blow sent dark, gooey blood arching through the air, splattering the ground at his feet.
Yet, despite his efforts, they seemed endless.
Each beast he cut down was instantly followed by another, their icy, grasping fingers reaching out with tenacity.
Edmund's power waned, as he helplessly gripped his sword. Tiredness seeped into his legs like lead, dense and sluggish, his vision narrowing.
As he is slaughtering the final one around him, another group of horde comes. Dead lock into Edmund's flesh as they march in sync.
He staggered back, cold sweat runs to his body with grim certainty—this was how it would end he thought.
He could feel it in his bones. His muscles burned, his arms trembled to hold his sword steady.
Then, in the tumult, a stirring caught his attention.
He caught sight of a figure standing in the shadows, near the edge of the treeline, observing the battle unfold with chilling nonchalance.
"Malachai!! Run away now!"
Worried that malachai will fall victim to the Undying.
But he did not reponsd instead he grins.
The same man who'd spoken to him pleasantly before, the beggar who'd offered companionship, now stood aside, observing something that turned Edmund's blood to ice.
The fear on Edmund's face when Malachai's form began to morph, his skin splitting, his body twisting.
his very bones cracking and reconfiguring.
It was a grotesque transformation, flesh bursting apart in a grotesque metamorphosis until the man was no longer recognizable.
Malachai stood a hulking monstrosity, its features twisted into a mask of disfigured flesh.
Its face was one of terror, eyes burning with evil intelligence, fangs bared in a demonic grin.
Fury seared through Edmund as a red-hot iron his fatigue dissolved away.
Malachai had been a fraud, a ruse, a bait to drag him into this hell.
Without uttering a word Edmund redoubled his attack, rage snarling in his throat, Edmund grabbed his sword and stood up again, defiance in his eyes, cleaving through the Undying horde.
Carving a bloody path through their ranks.
His movements were sharp, almost automatic, as he cut through their outstretched hands, his blade tearing through muscle and bone with a vengeance.
Edmund's skill and fury were too much.
In a final, strong blow, he burst out of their formation.
Malachai stood against the treeline and watched, his face smeared with mortality twisting into a weak smile.
His voice rang out, cold and taunting,
"You fight well, Sir Edmund. But in the end, it don't matter. There are too many of the Undying, too keen to tear your skin. ".
As he laughed eerily
Edmund coughed up blood, his chest heaving, struggling to stay upright.
"You trick me!"
he growled, his voice raw with fury.
"I trusted you, I thought your a companion after a long time without company you're the first that I talk with since fleeing from the City."
"But you're just another monster."
'Look,' said Edmund, gazing at Malachai's mangling of flesh.
"Am I?"
Malachai said, sounding almost inquisitive, as if the charge confused him.
'I'm only a slave, doing what I was commanded. My master seeks to claim your soul."
"Your master?"
Edmund repeated, the pieces falling into place.
Realization struck him like a hammer blow.
"Are you the one who did this? The source of the Plague?"
As Edmund asked trembling hands, anger swelling up inside him.
Malachai smirk
"No,I am not, I'm just merely a herald, an architect. Yet I have been complicit in the Undying blight. ".
With a shriek that shattered the night, the creature that had once been Malachai launched itself at Edmund, moving with unnatural speed.
Edmund barely got out of the way, the sword whipping up to clash with the creature's clawed hands.
The edge bit deep into its flesh, and black ichor sprayed across the forest floor, the stench of decay filling the air.
The monster lashed out, pounding Edmund with a series of brutal blows, bruising his suit of armour.
Claw scratched him across the chest, leaving claw marks and blood spurting out, the impact throws him into a tree, as he gets back on his feet and stumbles, his vision is blurry. In that brief moment of weakness, the monster seized its opportunity, lunging at him and bearing him to the ground.
Edmund snarled, tearing his dagger from its scabbard and driving it deep into the abomination's eye.
The animal cried out, rearing in agony, but its grip tightened.
Dirty claws raked across his face, leaving bloody streaks, and the monster's mouthful of teeth closed in, its breath a foul odor.
Edmund groaned, reaching for his side dagger, and in one last, desperate lunge, he plunged the blade into the abomination's eye.
A scream from the animal's throat, its body writhing in agony.
But it's going to him, it grabbed hold of Edmund, and he could sense its teeth reaching towards his neck.
With all the strength he could muster, Edmund heaved and wriggled his body weight to the side and rolled them over the loam.
The animal's back hit a broken log, eliciting a yelping hiss, and briefly stunning it.
In that split-second, Edmund's hand found his discarded greatsword.
With one mighty tug, he tore it free, swinging it in a powerful, two-handed arc.
Blood, the blade of it, cleaved off the monster's arm, a chop at the shoulder that sent a spray of ichor.
With a grating shriek, the beast's one eye burning with pain and anger, it roared.
They battled on, it seemed, for an age, trading blow for blow, the forest ringing with the clang of iron on claw.
Yet Edmund's skill and will kept him breathing in the face of the beast's cruelty.
Blood-splattered wounds, he holds sword in trembling hands, blood-red iron catching the pale moon.
At last, in a final swipe of his sword, he severed the legs from the creature, and it collapsed to the ground with a thud.
The monster stared at him, its one open eye, its lips pulled back in a pained snarl.
As Malachai eyes widened in shock as he crumpled to the ground, black blood bubbling from his lips.
"Impossible,"
he wheezed.
"I... cannot die..."
"You're wrong,"
'Squish,' Edmund growled, stomping Creeping's chest, 'Pull,' yanked his blade from his chest with a squelching sound. in a fountain of gore.
"We're all mortal. Even abominations like you."
Edmund lurched forward, chest rising, sword up to deliver the coup de grace.
The monster looked up at him with its single eye, a kind of unearthly detachment settling over its features as it spoke in a voice, or rather a sigh, less than a whisper.
"So… passes the last… light of… a dying… world.
It spoke, its voice a rasping whisper.
"So...passes the last...light of...a dying...world."
Edmund's brow furrowed, a sense of dread creeping over him. ".
Dying? What do you mean?"
A crowing, gurgle laugh wheezed from the beast's ripped windpipe.
"The Undying… plague… it draws… near. All… shall… fall with in its path, Even… you."
Edmund's face tightened, but he lowered himself to sit and took the creatures' head in one hand, forcing it to stare at him.
"What do you know of this curse? I shall grant you a quick end."
The monster gave a slight, almost dismissive shrug.
"I… know… little. Only… that it… is old. Older… than your… kind. Unleashed… centuries… past. During… the Black Death… your kind… suffered."
Edmund's eyes narrowed as realization dawned.
"The Black Death? You say the Black Death that swept the country, killing millions? ".
The news struck Edmund like a bolt from the blue.
"The Black Death?"
he repeated, struggling to process the implications.
'You hear them talking about the great plague, that took the whole country, it's, it's not that far back, how did it come again, and I heard they already have a cure for it'.
The creature gave smirk and laughs.
"It mutated… stronger evolve. with guidance from my master. It… mutated… the rats… it… infected… into… something… different. Carriers… of the… plague."
The knight's grip tightened on his sword.
"If I can trace this back to its source, perhaps find some clue to halting its spread, the realm might yet be saved."
"Too late..."
the creature rasped.
"It has...spread...far and wide. Even now...it consumes...all in...its path. Your...struggle...is futile."
Edmund drew himself up, eyes flashing.
So long as I continue to draw breath, I will not cease and will not sleep until I have found a way to redeem the rest of the human race no matter the cost.
"Then...you will...die...alone."
The monster's shredded lips twisted into a macabre grin.
Malachai shuddered once, then again, before he lay still.
When Malachai's body began to decompose rapidly, 'the flesh fell off to show the bone', Edmund reported.
Before long, the vagrant was nothing but a mound of dust and shreds of rags.
A far off howl echoed through the night, then that too fell into silence.
Edmund stood, breathless, over the wreckage of the proceedings, blood running down his sword and into his own flesh.
He felt a grim sense of satisfaction, knowing he had deal a blow against the the terrifying forces of darkness.
'He got up, wiping his sword, sheathing it.
The creature's words echoed in his thoughts.
But as he looked back at the bodies of the Undying littering the place, he knew it was a pyrrhic victory ᅳ a victory of sorts, but not really.