Years had passed since he was in this horrid prison. Unable to move on beyond. His body had stopped deteriorating. The dissonance between spirit and flesh was a living torment and deeper and deeper did his spirit retreat deep into his mortal shell. No carrion bird feasted upon their carcasses. No beast of the land dared venture close for the ground was tainted and more.
His body decomposed not and neither was he able to feel anything. The kiss of the wind on his flesh, the smell of the earth. It's as if every sound of the world had been sucked away leaving things locked in dull grey.
His only solace was that in his solitude he had a peaceful view of the countless stars above as he went on his eternal vigil.
The forest was unable to heal but life, in some ways, found a way. The mass grave of his comrade, their final battle was undisturbed and untouched. And that was closest to anything to true death he had.
How much time had passed? he could never tell. His own name blurred into oblivion inside his own mind and that was a pain unlike he ever conceived of thinking. Time, it seemed would have forgotten them.
Until an explosion of Fellpower, containing the barest hint of that creature that dares to call itself God. The earth cracked in his tomb. An old wakening of hate and fury as the he relived the very last moments when his own heart still beat. This was no simple remembrance but an actual reliving of the events. The sensations he felt, those moments etched so clearly. And then just as fast as they came it was over.
Long buried hate resurfaced. Too long had he not moved, Far too long had he been immobile.
His spirit has the knowledge to run and yet his body had completely rebelled to him. For the first time in a thousand turnings of the sun and moon, his bones began to move and groan.
He stumbled a dozen times, a pathetic attempt at making a single step. When his legs failed him, he used his very hands to pull him towards the Source of that power. It spread in the air, green sparkling light that brought colour in his dour, dead world.
He breathed the fell light and his body groaned for an instant and as if finally remembering, his legs finally knew how to function as they had been.
A multitude of voices called to him. Guiding him through the underbrush. Promising him of hope and peace but he knew exactly what they were. False promises.
He burst out of the trees and saw a multitude of those like him. Pitiful remnants of flesh and broken souls barely held together by loose emotions and leftover desires. They moaned and hungered. The basest instinct of all that remained was the animal in each man. The identical hunger present in each soul that would never be filled. The dead such as they are drawn to the living.
He cast his eyes towards the direction they headed and presumed correct. Stacked up woods of a homes and abodes. The golden glow of the living was prevalent in these.
However, he found himself drawn to another kind of light, tracing it amidst the air and found himself looking at the twisted light of green and gold atop a small hill. They numbered three and he could smell the malice through his dead nose. His boney hands cracked and teeth gnawed as he burst sprinting towards them. Perhaps he would finally feel something in all this lost time. The feel of corrupted flesh against the fury of his bones.
To see a Risen undead move like that was a perplexing sight. They would amble and shift their legs pathetically and to see a single undead may be a cause of concern but it was a simple enough to escape it. Barely held together by rotting flesh and tendons and some sporting much of their body already in bones. Their only strength lies in their near overwhelming numbers and unconventional means to eradicate them as opposed to living men.
The three apprentices watched in mesmerized stupor as the undead covered five hundred yards between them in five bounds.
From the looks of it, the man had only been recently dead for his face was a of a moonlight complexion without any color and still undefiled by rotting. His hands were all bones with the entire right arm reduced to bones up to the shoulder. A large piece of his cheek was gone and showed bone white teeth and apportion of his jaw.
Their eyes locked for that one second. And then it barreled straight to them. The more experienced of the three instinctively recognized the threat that it was. He mustered all his will, directing their undead army to attack the dangerous newcomer.
"Don't just stand there fools! Destroy that thing!" Cold sweat erupted from his back as he tried to rally their dead back to them.
"Why destroy it when it can be ours?" said one, stepping forward with his arms to his and breathing deep.
