Pestilence: Rise Of The Pure Undead

Chapter 426: Enter The Fray

Whilst blades and arrows easily left marks upon its thick, yet soft, cold flesh, all strikes aimed for its bare skull sent ripples through the attackers’s arms, arrowheads were chipped and broken into pieces, bellowing and agitating its head.

"Move!" a knight ordered, slinging a freshly lit torch right in the open gap of the beast’s jaw, created by the utter lack of flesh and muscles reacting adversely, the pale bull’s charge came to a stop, jumping and kicking, swinging its head madly, getting the torch in between its teeth, crushing it to splinters, the Loimosfire upon its horns flaring dangerously, momentarily passing over its skull.

Said knight lured the bull to charge him specifically, a few other knights joining him in this confrontation, meanwhile, all others, alongside the many soldiers turned their attention to the small group of undeads, led by a trusted lieutenant of the vanguard, Erestel, The Grasping Knight.

True to this acquired title, Erestel held out his left hand, and with nearly as much range as a bow and arrow, an invisible force spreading forth from his hold, crushing a poor soldier’s skull like a rotten pumpkin, the undead had been given only a few dozen of soldiers and a pale beast of Loimos, but it was enough for this particular mission, although the soldiers of the south were numerous, their knights were few, three of them were busy dealing with the bull, the other two were facing Erestel.

"Do as you see fit" spoke the undead to the soldier carrying a wooden club next to him, the chainmail covering the latter’s head rustling as he stepped forward, casually putting his hand on Erestel’s chest, motioning for him to step back.

The lieutenant could only shake his head at this display, indeed, although he had been given only little troops to work with, that came with the cost of commanding an undead with an especially strong personality, the other rank and files also stood behind striking their upon their shields, and upon the ground as some sort of cheer.

"Would you all not encourage his antics? It’s rather unbecoming of an undead..." Erestel said this, but he still allowed it to take place.

Tapping the wooden club in his armoured palm, the soldier exclaimed loudly : "May the strongest here step forward!"

The archers of both sides were ready to shoot, with the only difference that the undeads could hold back their bowstring indefinitely, and that no volley of arrows would damage them enough to be meaningful.

The two knight looked at one another, and then at their fellows struggling to put the bull down, they were definitely doing good but the beast simply did not understand the concept of stopping, never ceasing and slowing its movements, all three needed to be on their guard as any hit from the massive bovine definitely held the potential to make them unfit to fight.

"No, he is doing fine, survey the surroundings instead, some patrols will probably come along as well, slaughter them if they do, when the zone is secure, we shall invest the area and take control, gather the corpses and of course, let me gather their hands, Lady Multaemanus has perhaps never seen such hands..." it was obvious, but even as a member of the vanguard, Erestel held a strong allegiance to the spectre lord in particular, basing his training, his power, his armour, upon her obsession with this particular limb.

The love of hands was a refined one, so the grasping knight was not very much aligned with the ways Frenand was breaking fingers, crushing hands and ripping arms off to use as one-use weapons, but he was certainly a formidable fighter.

"Erestel! Those guys are not elites!" the champion said as he broke a neck.

"Of course, the strongest forces are stationed at the breach made by Sir Ourlst" responded the grasping knight.

"That’s not what I mean, look at this- Hold on... There!" he pulled the arm of a knight and threw it at his fellow undead, who caught it with an invisible force, understanding what Frenand wanted him to look at, he stripped the gauntlets off and inspected this southern knight’s rugged hand.

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The limb of a man that had trained without end and worked hard his entire life, that much everyone could tell, but, in all of his gloriousness, Loimos had arranged for Erestel to be allowed to speak and learn directly from Multaemanus, so he knew how to properly read hands, and by extension, who they belonged to.

"Oh... A mere soldier dressed as a knight? How did we not notice immediately?" as he said this, Frenand confronted the only actual knight present, the one who had dared to provoke the bull, in this way, it was obvious that this one was the real deal, the lieutenant in garbs of rank and file was actually not coming out on top with incredible ease.

"Frenand, don’t kill him! Break his arms..."

"...I have a few questions to ask"