22 Chapter 22 (1/2)

Three headed towards the village, close on Firius's heels. He was explaining how they had been expanding their defenses, preparing for the nightly fights. They had put out scouts, tracking the undead from where they came from but the undead left little to no tracks, puzzling the trackers. Undead should shamble through everything in their path, leaving obvious and easily traceable tracks. Every night however, a mist and snowstorm covered their coming, the trackers managed to get slightly closer to where the undead came from each night yet they still had not reached the point of origin.

The trackers were kept in the field, every day or two they would send a group to switch out, so they could further track the undead and receive reports on wherever it was they came from. Firius and the rest of the council were getting frustrated, they had become sure that it was a coördinated attack but they had no idea as of the purpose. Why throw increasingly large waves at the village instead of combining all the undead they could and wiping the village out in one fell swoop.

Why go through such an extent to cover where the undead came from, why attack the village in the first place? Too many questions and no answers, the villagers outside of the council seemed to take things rather well, too well in fact. Firius told Three about them not seeing the severity of the situation, the villagers saw it as merely another nightly problem and a good way to train their skills.

Firius had asked if Three was skilled in magic, anything that could be used to shore up the defenses. Three told him he had no magic abilities at all. He had tried once upon a time to learn one of the fire arrow spells Sumi used, for some reason the spell kept falling apart when he tried to use it. He had plenty of physical strength to go around however so Firius asked him to aid the loggers, the men were chopping trees down around the village, creating a cleared area to give them a line of sight. The chopped down trees were used to create pitfall traps, strengthen the walls, spiked trenches, anything they could think of that would slow down the undead.

One particularly large logger walked over to Three, gave him an axe, and pointed his chin at a tree. Telling him what to do without so much as a word, Three nodded taking a few practice swings with the axe as he set his sights on the tree. He pulled back fed some energy into his muscles and slammed his axe into the tree, it bit in rather far. With a few more energy fueled chops the tree started falling, yelling the appropriate timber to warn other loggers of the falling he tree he watched the wooden giant crash into the snow.

A group of woodcutters ran up, picked up the tree in its entirety showing off their raw strength, and took it to their workshop, were they turned the tree into planks or spikes. Whichever project had taken priority, Three soon lost himself in the rhythm of tree chopping, soon enough night was falling and his hands were covered in saw dust, the saw dust clinging to his sweat covered torso, dense enough to make it seem like he had bark of his own. One of the loggers came over with a bucket of water, the man raised an eyebrow as he lifted the bucket. Three nodded and the woodcutter dumped the contents of the ice-cold bucket over him, clearing away the dust, sweat and grime.

Together with the woodcutter he made his way over to the improvised wall, Firius was giving out commands. Anyone proficient with any kind of ranged weapon was manning the wall, arrows would do little against a skeleton but an arrow to the brain of a zombie would take it out, the other men, most of them with axes, were put in the trenches.

”What kind of weapon do you use?” Firius asked him, checking him for sheaths.

Three raised his hands, ”Mostly these.” He answered waving his hands.

Firius raised his eyebrows, ”I could use you in one of the trenches, if you think you can fight the undead bare handed?”

”Actually if you do not mind, I will be charging right into their center as soon as i see them. Nothing a level five skeleton or undead can throw at me, will harm me. So it would be most effective for me to thin their ranks.”

”Are you sure, numbers could kill even a high rank adventurer like yourself.” Firius said, doubt evident in his voice.

”I'm afraid i wasn't clear, they quite literally cannot harm me. They simply do not have the strength to get through my defensive skills.” Three showed Firius the status plate, he had taken to wearing it around his neck on a chain. None could see what it had inscribed unless he gave it to them to look.

Like many others before him, the tribal chieftains eyes widened as he saw the skills on his status plate. The mans eyes widened even further when he looked at the level, his gaze switched between the level and Crimson, who had been playing with his daughter nearly all day. He muttered to himself, but nodded his consent to Three's battle plan.

The sun dipped below the mountains, covering the land in shadow. The temperature noticeably dropped, he felt the men around him tense, as he waited with them in the trench closest to the forest. The man next to him gripped his axe, knuckles white, as a fog started rolling through the forest. Three blinked, having expected it to take a few hours before they arrived. The fog clung around the entrance to the clearing, swirling around the trees. For some reason, it held its place between the trees.

Crunching leaves replaced the eariy quiet, shuffling steps heard beyond the mist, not yet visible. Branches snapped, moaning, teeth grinding, footsteps, some stomping, some dragging, filled the night air. At long last the first of the undead appeared in the fog, its dark form a stark contrast against the gray. More forms appeared beside it, stretching from the far left to the far right. Ranks upon ranks of skeletons and zombies spilled out of the forest, their uncaring gaze locked onto their would be prey ahead.

Three concluded with near surety that the undead quickened their pace as soon as they laid their gaze upon the living. He stood up, leaving the trench, the men beside him gazing at him with wide eyes. Crimson got to her feet behind him, stepping over the trench. Three marched towards the encroaching army, rolling his shoulders, stretching his fingers in anticipation of the battle. The undead were slow, mind-numbingly so, he was tired of waiting, he could feel the thrum of his blood , the beating of his heart.