The Beginnings Omnibus: Beginnings 1, 2, 3 & Legend of Ashenclaw novella (Realm of Ashenclaw Beginnings Saga) (15 page)

Saeunn slashed her way through the zombie infestation with Scarr at her side, his twin axes working in a tireless sequence. The Greymoors and their fearless leader, Kernagos, had stormed across the plains on horseback, making it to the battle as the second force of Blood Rotters, double the size of the first, had attacked. The tide of battle was turning in their favor once more.

Saeunn went to engage another of the Blood Rotters, allowing its bulging frame to penetrate her personal space. It lunged forward in the hopes of tearing into her flesh. Saeunn simply ducked the lower half of her body, bending at the waist and then standing upright to flip the thing over her. The zombie landed with a loud thump on the wetland and Saeunn repositioned herself to be perpendicular to it as, for a heartbeat, it lay prone. That was all the time she needed. With a powerful downward strike, she severed the head of the Blood Rot zombie, her anger finally at its peak.

She turned to see her father produce a torch and use it to set the next fallen Blood Rotter ablaze. The rest of the barbarians were doing likewise, recognizing the success of the Greymoors employing this measure to the north.

Saeunn paused a moment to take in the sight. Blazing zombies now littered the battlefield, causing a bright fire to be seen from miles away. Some of the magical flames of the shamans remained lit, even when the undead Blood Rotters fell upon patches of damp swampland. Barbarians fought savagely against the supernatural foe and the whole scene suddenly seemed unreal to her.

“Burn the damned things!” Saeunn heard suddenly, pulling her focus back to reality at the unmistakable sound of her father rallying the troops in his raspy, gruff voice. His blonde hair and multi-braided beard was splashed with blood, as was his entire body. His bare chest, though covered with blonde hair and heavily tattooed, was also bathed in zombie gore. He swung his axe and torch combination to great effect. Scarr was an inspiration to the barbarians and to her as well.

“For Chansuk! For Wothlondia!” she heard once more over the sound of the battle.

Shaman Syth appeared next to her suddenly and put a hand on her shoulder, turning her to face him. He held a rod of some kind in his hand which he used to restrain her sword hand lest he be cut down. He knew that surprising a barbarian warrior, even an unseasoned one, was never a good idea.

“Wha—“ Saeunn managed, staring into the mystical eyes of the shaman that seemed distant. Where had he come from?

“Hold out your weapon,” Syth instructed her. She did as she was told and watched as he removed a strange vial from his belt sack, uncorked the container and rubbed phosphorescent oil along the blade. It held fast somehow, not spilling to the ground at all, not even one drop.

The older shaman then spoke an incantation quickly and waved a hand over the blade, causing it to burst into flames. Saeunn nearly dropped her sword, but the shaman had placed his hand over hers to ensure that she did not. Magical fire began surging and then shrinking as if in rhythm with the sound of her own heartbeat.

“Go now, child. Smite your enemies and send them back to the plane of Pandemonium from whence they came.”

Saeunn immediately ran off to intercept two Blood Rotters heading toward them. Syth fell back into the crowd of barbarians, issuing mystical aid and spiritualistic healing to those suffering the effects of the blood rotting ailment.

Saeunn and her now-flaming blade began cutting down zombie after bloated zombie. Each strike set one more ablaze, and they burned, eventually crumbling to dust. She somehow ignored the effects of their terrible disease, pushing past the fatigue-like symptoms of not only the blood rot, but also of her own tiring muscles. Her innate fury counteracted the weariness somewhat, but there was an irrefutable ache in her limbs.

The main force of barbarians had driven much of the undead infestation to the south. Saeunn pushed further east, cutting down the seemingly limitless army of Blood Rotters, until she saw a limp body lying on the ground a hundred or so paces away. In the dwindling sunlight, she could not make out who it was. She noticed that five of the zombies were advancing on the prone barbarian, anticipating a feast of fallen flesh. She turned toward them and, as she did, she caught a flash of lightning in her peripheral vision to her right and behind her, though no storm presented this day.

Saeunn began to run as fast as her legs could move her, sprinting with the speed of a wildcat and closing in on the undead pack. She arrived just as the Blood Rotters converged on the barbarian, encircling him and bending low to feed on the easy prey, but Saeunn would have none of it.

It was only when she got to within striking distance that one of the zombies noticed her, but it was too late. Her flaming greatsword came down, splitting it in two from head to groin with a downward stroke and setting magical fire to the thing’s disease-ridden flesh as the blade passed through.

It was then she caught a glimpse of the fallen barbarian. It was a man, blonde and bearded, with the physique of a bear and whose body appeared scorched from something. Recognition flooded her thoughts and horror beset her features.

Rothnarr
.

 Realizing that her lover was the intended victim of the zombies sent a deluge of anger through her. The barbarian woman was incensed.

Another two zombies turned their attention toward her. She swung her flaming sword in a wide arc with such force that she cleaved the first one in two. Its burning upper half flew to the left and the lower section collapsed to the soggy ground. She used the momentum of that wide swing to continue the circular motion, reversing her grip on the weapon. She brought the pommel of her tremendous greatsword to bear directly into the face of the next zombie. Blood, tattered flesh and bone sprayed out as she caved in the contaminated creature’s nose. She ignored the carnage and allowed the Blood Rotter to hit the ground, then drove a booted heel into the creature’s neck, crushing it into the soil.

She heard another approaching from behind and dropped the flaming weapon on the prone body of the dying zombie in order to set it ablaze. She simultaneously thrust a swift back kick into the oncoming zombie, the fourth of the five wretches.

She turned to face the last of them as it leaned over the limp body of Rothnarr and began tearing flesh from his right arm. The fourth blood rotter rose from the ground behind her and rushed at her once more. She grabbed her weapon from the burning zombie, ignoring the flames as they licked at her hand and arm. She spun one hundred and eighty degrees, severing the zombie’s head from its body. The suddenly flaming skull went flying some distance in the opposite direction.

She turned to face the last one again, not even turning to watch the body of the decapitated zombie as it fell into the swampy ground behind her, and advanced with anger unparalleled toward it as it chewed on the flesh of her beloved. Standing over the zombie, she seized it firmly by the nape of the neck and pulled it up, tossing it away from Rothnarr’s unmoving form. The Blood Rotter landed unceremoniously onto its back, still tearing into a piece of flesh it held.

Saeunn suppressed all logic or tactics at this point and allowed complete and utter instinct to take over. She grasped her greatsword, flames dancing up and down its shaft, and drove the blade down into the zombie’s skull with all the might she had in her. The zombie’s head splattered into chunks of flaming, unrecognizable pieces as she continued to hack down onto the remains over and over again. After her senses returned, she dropped the flaming greatsword, fighting through the pain in her heart and went to Rothnarr.

“Syth!” she cried out. “Help him, please!”

Saeunn did not want to look down upon the man she loved… did not want to witness him in this weakened and helpless state. The battle still raged on to the west and to the south of her, but she did not take heed.

An owl landed in front of her and transformed right before her eyes into a man. It was Syth, she finally recognized, wiping her eyes that streamed tears born of heartache and frustration. The shaman began immediately uttering prayers and summoning spirits to access the regenerative plane and to begin the ritual of healing. Blood pooled onto the ground next to Rothnarr’s mighty right arm, mixing with the wet ground and making it seem as if it were some morbid and surrealistic design in the damp soil. Syth continued to invoke healing rituals over the fallen barbarian, repeating the words over and again. Saeunn noted that Syth also treated another area of his body, and that Rothnarr had been the victim of something that caused a severe scorch mark on his left shoulder and back, too.

After several moments, Syth succeeded in stopping the blood flow from the wound almost completely. He checked the man’s pulse, lifting his huge left arm and then listening to his heartbeat. He did not need to tell Saeunn that Rothnarr’s breathing was shallow at best.

A flash of lightning again caught her peripheral vision and she turned to see someone running their way, emerging from a tree line to the south. Her first instinct was to funnel the danger, whatever it was, away from her lover.

A barbarian man, dark of hair and fleet of foot, was racing toward her. She sprinted toward him and recognized him to be Magreth.

“Away from here!” Saeunn shouted. He heard the plea and nodded. The barbarian man zigzagged away from her, pointing to a rather large and old stump of a tree just as he tucked and rolled, dodging a bolt of lightning. She nodded in response to him and began to hurry toward it, propelled by the task of protecting her beloved and aiding her brother.

Saeunn saw the thing chasing Magreth—the source of the lightning bolt. It was moving at an extraordinarily rapid pace that seemed to defy logic. It was a Blood Rotter for sure, but distinct from the others. It wore a kind of headdress and was robed in majestic-looking regalia that suggested it as being of a higher station than the rest—especially since it was hurling bolts of lightning at her brother.

Saeunn rounded the remains of the once mighty tree and waited for her brother to pass. The stump was choked with profuse undergrowth and shrubbery sprouting wildly around it. Saeunn knelt. The magical flames that had once engulfed her greatsword were all but gone now, flickering out bit by bit. Magreth, still running crazily past a thicket of shrubbery and through the thick vegetation, rounded the tree stump tightly. The Blood Rotter mage followed, trying to keep up with the faster barbarian.

As the creature presented itself, Saeunn leaped out from behind the stump, slashing her greatsword mightily as it ran past, gashing a gaping wound in its right side. The blow was struck with such force that she ended her lethal strike by landing on her left knee as the thing fell behind her atop the wetland surface.

As the undead mage lay there, a liquid oozed from its wound, gushing out onto the sodden ground and steaming immediately as it hit it. Amidst the hissing sound of the thing’s blood hitting the damp soil, Saeunn heard movement as suddenly the creature stood behind her. She could not believe her ears. She slowly rose from her bent knee and turned in time to see the Blood Rot mage finishing a spell.

How?
Saeunn was lost in her own disbelief at the turn of events. She immediately expected to feel the jarring heat of a lightning bolt sear into her own flesh and braced for the inevitable.

She did not see an electrical discharge at all this time, but instead saw a flash of something else in the fading sunlight. She spun to witness what appeared to be a cone-shaped discharge of a black and green substance. It seemed to spew forth from the cavity caused by her blade and it gushed toward her.

At that instant she was sent sprawling to the ground as her brother slammed into her, knocking her down. The discharge of nauseating ooze hit Magreth square on his right flank and back as he leaped in front of his sister. He could not stifle a scream as the acidic blast stripped layers of his skin away, revealing muscle, tendon and bone. It happened so quickly that Saeunn could do nothing but watch helplessly as it ate away pockets of his flesh.

Saeunn’s eyes widened, displaying a sequence of horror and then anger—first one and then the other. She stood and charged the thing before it could do any more harm. Her greatsword slashed in multiple circular left-to-right motions which systematically took chunks of clothing and flesh with them. The creature stumbled back with each cyclical rotation of her blade. Her steel hacked at the undead mage like a machine, falling in line and pressing forward each time it moved backward. More of the acidic stuff flew from it, landing on Saeunn’s mail and leather and even upon her own flesh too, but she did not feel it. She felt only the anger burning within her; the fury and bloodlust that fueled her with the indomitable spirit and strength to down any foe.