Fourth Target: The Dweller in the Dark

[Godhand]

Godhand walked through the city with the small contingent of soldiers leading the way. The city had truly been ravished by Xem'Zund; if anything, the elven sergeant had been sugarcoating the situation. People were ready to kill each other just to get the other's ration of rotten fish and haphazardly washed herbs. Every so often the woman would pause to point out a particularly horrible scene, like a soot-faced child tugging at his mother's dead hand or a soldier tossing another body unto a soon-to-be-burned pile to avoid the city becoming overrun with plague. Just when Godhand believed he'd seen the absolute worst, a new horror greeted him. It was enough to make him grit his teeth.

Then again, it was nothing he hadn't seen before. Perhaps he hadn't witnessed this sort of devastation on such a large scale, but war is war. The elves had stayed too neutral too long and this was what they'd received for their hubris. The once glorious Raiaerian city of Anebrilith had been reduced to little less than a ramshackle port, with people from all four corners of the country scrambling to get out. They knew which was the tide was turning. While the elves had been singing their songs, the Necromancer had been solidifying his grip on Raiaera. While they'd been sculpting their statues, the scourge had spread as far as Alerar. While they had been studying the architecture of the ancient buildings, Xem'Zund had summoned the Necrosition. The elves had refused to see the danger until it had set upon them, and by then it was too late.

Godhand knew that he'd gone about as long as he could without a cigarette. He pulled a lighter out from his pocket and flicked the top open, easily catching a spark and lighting it. He took the first deep, long drag. The best of them all. Verryna watched him intently, studying his face for any sort of a reaction. The swordsman didn't have anything to say. He was just tired. Tired of this. Tired of having to cut himself a path everywhere he went. He hadn't rested in what felt like a thousand years, and it seemed like the smell of blood would never go away no matter how much he tried. And now this girl was looking at him to be their hero. Hell, he had probably murdered more 'heroes' than any other type of person. Where was Letho? He'd know what to do in a situation like this. He'd don his golden armor and lead these people to the promised land, vanquishing Xem'Zund forever. Godhand didn't have golden armor; just a tattered old trenchcoat. Finally releasing the breath of smoke he'd been holding all this time, he turned to Verryna and raised a weary brow.

"Well? What do you want me to do about this?"

She looked at him like he was crazy.

"I want you to fight!"

[Mage Hunter]

Lightheadedness had begun to creep up on Drusilia as she shook her head slowly. She had known taking on Mana like she had against Warson could make her physically ill, but this was stretching it. She just couldn't deal with this. It was like someone was battering her skull with a hammer, and then decided after the pounding wasn't enough, to inflate her skull with a balloon so it could float away. She had already donned the armor she had bought from the merchant and while it had reassured her she wouldn't be hurt so badly, she couldn't help but feel the sickness progressing.

That scared her most.

This was beyond the nausea and vomiting she had encountered. Her instructors had told her interaction with the winds of magic would of course produce these effects. They had called it Mana Burn, but really it was always suggested to be a trivial problem. Rest and trancing should have solved any waxing of the illness. While she had tranced, she hadn't gotten better, which told her one of two things.

Either the spell was affecting her...

...or it was still killing her.

She had taken on a rather large amount of Mana. There was no telling what the effect with the winds of magic could do to a Huntress like her. For all she knew, the Mana had pooled and greatly changed the nature of the enchantments, and was slowly working on reproducing its affects on her. The only thing keeping them in check, was the fact she was absent from the winds, and they were trying to reconnect her into the stream of Mana. She had maybe another day or two before the ritual was undone, if this was the problem.

At that point, it was like a time bomb, it'd go off and either permanently enchant her, gifting her with its blasphemous power, or kill her outright as it had tried long ago. Neither prospect was desirable, so she needed a way to dump the Mana before it corrupted her entirely. Moving through the crowd the noises jumbled in her head. She was starting to tunnel vision as she moved about slowly. Someone seemed to catch on something wasn't right before a strong hand held her up by the arm.

"You know, I can't keep saving you," The voice was soft, persistent, and full of arrogance. It hearkened back to vague memories in Concordia Forest, a voice that had sifted through her dreams, when she had passed out from blood loss. She was about to mumble and objection before she felt something cold press against her hip. The pain intensified for a second before she felt the heated breath of the person holding her up speak, "Be damn glad I had my charge, It'll keep the Mana from eating you alive, but you have to purge it."

The hand let her go as she struggled to remain upright. The figure had roughly pushed past her as she felt and saw the familiar flash of a null stone. Immediately her vision cleared as she looked about in a daze. When she finally regained full faculties she turned about to see the figure had gone. The people who had been watching her seemed to huddle and whisper.

She felt thoroughly embarrassed. Further because apparently this figure had saved her again. As she leaned against the wall she shook her head, the final vestiges of the light headed feeling leaving her. Moving through the city she realized she truly had no clue as to what she was doing. While Drusilia wanted to chase down the figure, and demand answers, she highly doubted it could be so simple. This person had obviously followed her, keeping tabs upon her as she moved, and if he was truly that good, she wouldn't catch up to him anytime soon.

That left her only one option. Moving through the crowds she began to look for Godhand, perhaps he had come across something. For now she was more confused by the figures words than anything. How could she purge it? She had only recently come to grips with collecting such energies; she had no clue on how to manipulate it to her advantage. A soft sigh left her lips before she finally caught sight of the warrior. He had lit up one of his cigarettes and the Elf she had left him with was looking at him as if he had grown a second head.

Moving towards the man she shouldered her pack as she looked at the mercenary, trying to hide the discomfort and weakness from her voice as she spoke, "Find anything yet?"

[Godhand]

Godhand raised a brow. Just what was she thinking?

"Sergeant Verryna, I am but a man. Are you seriously suggesting I go out there and defeat Xem'Zund's army?"

Her eyes grew desperate.

"You're not just a man! You killed Warson! There's got to be something you can do!"

"It is easier to overcome one bull than a thousand fire ants. Yes, certainly. I could go out there and cut my way through the Necromancer's ranks. Chances are I'd probably collapse an entire flank. And then what? Let's be very, very generous and also assume there's no archers out there. I could probably take out between one and two thousand of his footsoldiers. Let's briefly ignore the fact that after the first hundred went down the rest would go made with fear and rage and grind me up in a matter of seconds."

The sergeant was beaming as her guard looked at each other uncertainly. Godhand tilted his head and made apparent his puzzlement at the female commander's look of joy.

"Yes? And then what? One flank collapsed. Sure, that sounds impressive. Until you consider that the Scourge has, and keep in mind this is not exaggeration but rather an extremely conservative estimate, 1.5 million soldiers waiting in reserve. And, like I said, that's under the extremely optimistic assumption that only thirty percent of the country's population has been turned. In all likelihood, it's probably three million. Three million, madam. Can you even begin to grasp the size of such a number? Three million zombies. I could stay here and kill a thousand of the abominations every day for the next five years, no breaks no vacations and still have barely gotten half of them. Now, Verryna: tell me again how much good you think I'll do?"

The pretty young elf seemed to deflate before him, and the fire drained from her eyes. She was quite ready to give up, though.

"But-!"

Just then, Drusilia showed up. There was something off about her, but Godhand was too harried to say anything. He acted quickly.

"No, but listen to this: sergeant Verryna says that all drow are godless, worthless heathens that were spared from being driven off the edge of this continent only by the infinite grace of the high elves. How do you feel about that?"

Godhand ducked out before he could get caught in the wake of the ensuing shitstorm. Drusilia unleashed what he assumed could only be a truly vile string of curses in her native language, drawing the attention of passerby. The mercenary lowered his head and escaped while the sergeant desperately tried to explain herself to the enraged huntress.

It was an ugly thing to do. He knew that. But he also knew that he'd never get any leads on the Necrosition with the elven commander hanging off his shoulder and giving hard glares at anybody that might have information in an effort to stall Godhand and keep him in town for another day. He needed some room to operate.

[Mage Hunter]

Perhaps it was the fact that she had just started recovering from the Mana Burn. Perhaps it was because she was frustrated at having to be stuck in a city of the very people she had grown up learning how to kill. Perhaps it was the fact she was just an angry person, or even the fact that she could almost believe what Godhand had said. She didn't know, what she did know however, was that before her was a good vent for the rage and anger of her situation. With such a tempting target, how could she resist?

She didn't.

As the Sergeant tried to turn and look at Godhand, searching for the reason for her betrayal she found a hand had forcibly turned her head, locking her eyes into those of the cold hearted huntress. A finger was left in her face as she began a tirade, that was a low growl, however, with each syllable it rose in tone and pitch, until it was a screeching choir of anger and hubris, "Dos waele, kl'eril ssindossa d' biu darthirii! Dos talinth dos inbal jalbol phor uns'aa? Dos ph' naubol drill l' dalhar d' ssindossan luthk wund ky'ostal lu' jivvust glenn. Usstan orn plynn nindel killian lu' jihard ol ji feir phor dosst t'zarreth, nindel vel'drav F'sarn areion xuil dos, dos orn ssrig'luin ulu inbal l' m'thain drewst ol!"

One of the elves moved to restrain her from the sergeant only to find his hand fiercely swatted away. As he pulled it back she continued, finally finding her voice in common. So angry had she been she had forgotten to even speak in anything but her native tongue, "If you think for one second I'm saving your ass because I like it you have another thing coming. I'm here because people like you couldn't keep your abominations in the gods be damned box and one got free! So take your little holier than though attitude, take your pity me stories and shove them. So help you, if I hear about you pretending to be the innocent bystander in this war one more time I'm going to strangle you with your intestines and wash my blades in your blood."

Silence reigned as Drusilia heaved her chest rising and falling madly with the concerted effort. Words had been spoken and they were out there garish and ugly. A person with a conscience one that actually cared about the Elves’ plight might have felt guilty about what spilled out. However, the Mage Hunter was not, magic had been the source of this entire problem, and the problems she was experiencing. Magic was the root of the evil that had destroyed this world once before, starting with the War of the Tap. No, she was through playing nice.

The sergeants blue eyes searched elves face even as they looked at each other. For a brief moment, Drusilia saw a glimpse of anger, one that threatened to have the clenched fist at her side strike out at the Drow. Finally the elf spoke her voice subdued, almost like a dog with its tail between its legs, "Congratulations, you've pointed out the obvious. Is there anything else you want to do to demoralize our people?"

Drusilia looked around, people were staring at the two of them, and the guards that were accompanying her were at the edge of drawing steel. It was still tense, and her next words would either end with her in the jail, or her able to go find where Godhand had run off to, during the tirade. As she looked at the elf she reached into the pouch at her waist and pushed the coin firmly into the elf's hand, "Here's a gold, go buy yourself a ticket to leave. I'd hate for such a talented liar to die in a shit hole like this."

She never felt the sap that knocked her out.

[Godhand]

Things didn't go quite as smoothly as Godhand would have hoped. After he slipped away during the confusion, he tried grilling some of the local riffraff for information but given that everyone looked so grimy it was genuinely difficult to tell a soot-covered refugee apart from a confidence man. Apart from that, nobody knew what was going on outside the city. Like an open wound, Anebrilith had festered during the months of Xem'Zund's siege and now was positively infested with every kind of rat, crook or swine you could name. There were pirates at the docks, slave traders at the entrances and hungry refugees clogging everything in between. You couldn't take two steps outside any building without someone panhandling at best and mugging you at worst. They didn't even care that it was broad daylight. Just a real rough scene wherever you went, and people weren't too keen on discussing the hordes of murderous zombies banging at the gates with a stranger. They had enough problems inside the protective walls of the city.

Finally, Godhand found one of the contacts he had in the Anebrilith. Most of them had moved on to greener pastures by then, but not Willie the Wimp. Willie was so stubborn that it didn't matter to him how badly a city was doing, he'd stick around until he was sure he'd made back his initial investment in it. When he found the mercenary at his door, he'd walked forward without a moment's hesitation, clasped both his cheeks and kissed him on the lips. Then he patted Godhand's face a few times and backed off. After inviting him in, the warrior took Willie's customer's seat while he sat opposite him on the other end of his stained wood business desk. Finally, the man reached down for an ornate bottle containing a dusky brown liquid and poured the mercenary a shot.

"The real live Godhand, sharing a drink with me! You've gotten real famous, hoss. What are you doing here?"

"What are you doing here, Willie? Don't you know there's a war on?"

"Ugh. It's these fucking elves, man. Things were peaceful when I came here originally. Anebrilith got a lot of human tourists, and you know how these elves are. They think they're so superior, so any sort of crime goes down and right away they bust all the tourists because hey, none of their own would commit such a heinous act, right? Hell of a lot of work for a bondsman. The tourist's girl comes to me, she says help me get my man out. Then you cut a deal with the head of the docks, and he lets you know whenever anyone tries to skip out on you without paying. The whole fucking business practically ran itself. Now there's this war on. My friend in the docks is dead, and even if he wasn't, nobody's going to jail anyway. Christ, you could slit somebody's throat in broad daylight and the guards would just wave you off. They've got their own problems."

"Sounds rough."

"It is, but I just can't leave the city yet. I need to make back what I put in."

"Of course."

"Now, back to the real business: what are YOU doing here?"

"Well, you ever hear of the Necrosition?"

"No."

"Right, well basically it breaks down like this: there's this group of Necromancer high generals, and they handle the minutiae of the war. I mean Xem'Zund leads the big charges but these guys deal with putting down resistance groups, sabotaging supply lines, minor expansion into Salvar...That sort of thing."

"Alright, I follow you."

"Well, that's basically it. I got hired to kill those guys."

"Why?"

"I don't know. Draw the war out? Somebody's got to be making money off this thing."

"Huh. Well, I don't know anything about them but if you stick around then you're bound to run into them sooner or later. With the possible exception of Eluriand, there's no city being attacked as hard and as often as Anebrilith is right now. Sooner or later, one of those bigwigs is bound to lead the charge."

"Yeah, I'm starting to see that."

Willie sucked down his shot and opened one of the drawers in his desk, fishing out a small white rock and a razor blade and going to work. He soon reduced it to a fine powder, pulled out a royal Corone mark and began to snort it.

“No, do-Ugh! Don’t do that! That’s disgusting!”

“What?”

“Don’t stick the mark up your nose! You know that money is the thing that most changes hands?"

“And?”

"And recent studies have shown that three out of five people don't wash their hands after going to the bathroom."

"...And?"

"What do you mean, 'and'? It's like you're sucking up someone's shit particles!"

"No, it's like I'm sucking up cocaine through a mark with someone's shit particles on it."

"What's the difference?"

"There's obviously a difference, Godhand. Anyway, everybody shits."

"Jesus. One of these days you’re going to get a papercut on the inside of your nose and end up dying of tetanus or some shit. That’s what happened to Johnny Romano.”

Willie began to hack and cough after snorting the final line.

“Johnny Romano was poisoned!”

“Here we fucking go.”

“No, shut up! You’re part of the problem! Johnny was messing around with the king’s wife, and the king found out about it. And so he went to the scarlet squad-“

“Scarlet Brigade.”

“Shut up! So he went to the scarlet squad and said, “listen, I want this guy dead but I don’t want it coming back to me.” And so they say yes, your majesty, of course your majesty, and some guy in a hood shows up at Johnny’s place and two days later he’s dead.”

“Every fucking time with this shit…”

“You’re part of the problem, man! Those guys count on people like you! You just- You-…Ungh, hold on.”

Willie leaned down and held his sinuses. Godhand didn’t really like hanging around him when he got high; right away he started talking about conspiracies and if you didn’t go along with it you suddenly became Part Of The Problem. Godhand hated being Part Of The Problem, so that's usually when he left. Godhand stood up and picked up his hat from the nearby rack before walking over to the door.

“I’ll see you later, Willie.”

"Wait, wait!"

He shut the door behind him. Now he needed to get his partner out of the local jail.

[Godhand]

It was a real Goddamn hassle to find the dungeons. Nobody had gotten thrown in there in months, and with the scarcity of space in the city, it'd all gotten turned into refugee housing. Now the whole thing was barely recognizable. The refugees had draped the walls with quilts, divided up the cells with drapes to designate each of their 'rooms', and the stench of a dozen different meals being cooked at once filled the air. They didn't have any gas to cook with or water to boil, but most elves were at least handy enough with magic that they could create those things themselves out of practically nothing at all. Didn't do anything for the smell, though. Jesus, what the Hell were they cooking?

Still, you could hear a murmur of discontent as apparently a small family had been thrown out of their 'house' to accommodate a new prisoner. They hadn't even given them time to pick up their various belongings before tossing in the drow and locking the door. Some refugees were so chagrined at this that they joked that perhaps they ought to commit some crime so that they may also acquire a cell all for themselves.

The fact that a prisoner had finally been taken in meant that a guard was forced to once again take up their post near the cell, and Godhand could tell he didn't like being there anymore than he did. It was the smell, probably. The blonde-haired elf was wrinkling his brow and hiding his nose with his hand casually, so as not to offend his destitute countrymen. Damn decent of him. Godhand didn't have to do that; he was big, mean and human. People expected him to wear his disdain for their meager life on his sleeve, as they'd once worn their disdain for his entire race on theirs. But the mercenary's face didn't change. He still had his poker face; there was no reason to rile these people up anymore than they already had been by his drow friend. He made his way through the curious crowd and spoke to the soldier guarding Drusilia.

"Alright, fella'. I don't got a lot of time so let's just cut to the chase: what's it going to take to get that broad out of there?"

"I'm sorry, sir, but you'll have to speak to Sergeant Verryna. It was on her orders that this woman was locked up."

"Look, you can't possibly be getting paid enough to stand around here. How's five hundred marks sound?"

"It sounds marvelous sir, but again, you'll have to speak with Sergeant Verryna. I am-"

Of all the guards in Anebrilith, Godhand had to get the honest one. Jesus. Well, there were other ways. At least this wouldn't cost him anything. The swordsman suddenly fell to his knees, clasped the soldiers hands and pretended to weep into them, wailing loudly.

"Oh thank you, thank you! I thought I'd never be able to leave!"

That was all it took. The vaguest hint that that guard had some way of leaving the cursed port town was all it took to set the refugees into motion, suddenly rushing the guard with desperate pleas for help. It was like he'd been swallowed up by some big, stinking beast composed of the destitute. Godhand felt badly for them. They were animals in Hell, just trying to survive.

But so was he.

Godhand made his way to the cell in the confusion, discreetly bent the bars enough for the drow to slip through them and held out his hand.

[Mage Hunter]

The world was pain, at least that’s the way she felt. As soon as the Huntress had started awakening, she felt that her head had been smashed a few times with a mallet. Slowly rising up she heard the grumbles of people about her. Some spoke of her, and the filth she represented. Other’s spoke of her situation and how they envied it. Her eyes opened, and immediately shut at the bright display of light, even though the room was lit only by torches.

She had seen bars.

She should never have put it past the Sergeant to not lock her up for her rather crass comments and sassy attitude to the woman. Still, it had felt good to actually yell at the woman and voice her opinion. Not exactly something she would have repeated, but the experience was exhilarating all the same. Shaking the cobwebs from her head she felt the pain in the back of her head, and carefully moved her hand through her hair to the scalp, checking for injury.

Feeling only the beginning of a bruise the huntress muttered softly looking at the bars, “For little ole’ me? You shouldn’t have guys…”

Immediately she heard a sharp rap against the bars as the guard barked, “Shut up! Prisoners don’t talk!”

Soon the guard had gotten caught up in a conversation, and she could swear the voice on the other end was familiar. It wasn’t until she finally ventured another attempt at keeping her eyes opened, that the huntress’s eyes widened. She had figured Godhand would have probably let her rot. Yet here he was begging borrowing and stealing to get her out of the cell. When all that failed, he pulled a rather dirty card, and mentioned escape.

If there is one thing you don’t do to the desperate, it’s to mention hope.

Immediately the cretins that filled the prison were upon the soldier, trying desperately to leave this hell. Godhand had already bent the bars when Drusilia took his hand and was pulled through. It didn’t take long to hit the streets, and since the guard had not bothered to remove her gear, it was still mostly in place, perhaps an odd arrow or two missing from her quiver from when it had dipped too low.

Shaking her head once more she looked about in the broad daylight before she muttered, “I’d say thank you, but I think that’ll wait for when we’re done in this hell hole. Is there anything going on I should be aware of, or does your altruism stretch to guilt for releasing me on that bitch of an elf?”

Her acidic tongue lashed out even before she felt the oncoming wave of sickness. Immediately she leaned against the wall and placed her hand in front of her mouth, feeling a weakness she loathed. To be so fragile was not how she envisioned this job. She had taken on the experimental corps to be the best she could be for her Queen. To think it would be causing her such trouble, in the lands she had been trained to fight in, was a concern for the woman.

Ignoring the question she had to be receiving she shook her head again, before she looked at Godhand, “Lets get moving, we need to find the next member and soon, before we get caught in another Elven shit storm.”

[Godhand]

Godhand hadn't really been paying much attention to his drow companion. As soon as they'd left the catacombs, he felt it. He couldn't really say what it was, but the air was different. Heavier, and with the smell of...Something. It was like a very, very light scent of embalming fluid or vinegar, he couldn't say which. He didn't have much time to consider it, however, being as how the huntress had nearly collapsed once they'd gotten clear of the cells. She held herself up against a wall and looked to be trying to get her head straight. He moved forward to try and help her, but that's when he realized what was happening. His hand shot to his blade before the first elf could shout out his warning from the parapets.

"XEM'ZUND'S ARMY!"

And then it was like a match had been dropped into a powder keg. The whole city erupted into action, and it was like the cells but on a much grander scale. It occurred to Godhand that the greatest enemy to the city's safety might not be the Necrosition, but instead the very refugees the city sought to protect. Nearly every single soldier that was patrolling the city was bum-rushed by a mass of unwashed cretins, demanding to know what he was going to do or where the designated shelter was. This left the tragically undermanned parapets to fire a paltry stream of arrows into the zombie ranks, which no doubt seemed to them a massive, invincible horde.

But Godhand knew that where there was a army, there was a general, and unsheathed his weapon and blew past the frenzied refugees in one fluid motion. The mercenary was a black blur as he raced to the main gate, clearing it with a single mighty leap and landing crouched on the other side. It was then he saw what had made the elves panic so. The battle-necromancers before had been nothing but an advance scouting party, sent there to gauge the city's defenses. This...This was an army. The warrior unconsciously gripped his sheath. He knew that a force of this size could only be led by one of Xem'Zund's most trusted and capable commanders. The mercenary supposed he had gotten lucky, in a way. Willie the Wimp was right; the Necrosition had come to him.

Now was no time to be intimidated. If he could just manage to find whoever was leading the army and eliminate him, he could cut off this dragon's head and shorten his list in one fell swoop. He knew that once their commander was gone, the entire army would revert to a mass of purposeless undead and easy pickings for the elven archers, if they could just manage to find enough arrows. On their own the abominations were basically useless, slow and utterly incapable of reason, much less sieging a fortified port. The warrior grit his teeth, steadied his resolve and barreled into the shambling horde at full speed and with his shoulders low.

[Mage Hunter]

"Spoke too soon..." Drusilia muttered, watching Godhand run off into the fray. People were acting in the worst possible way for the situation, rather than getting out of the way and letting the soldiers do their job, they clung to them like flies upon shit. Shaking her head, she moved through the streets ignoring the pounding headache to reach the parapets where the archers were.

"What are you doing here!?" The words came from a rather irate looking sergeant Verryna who was currently watching over the works of the small band of archers. Her hair was disheveled, probably from running, and she had definitely not slept since Drusilia had insulted the elf. The Drow merely brushed past her, looking forth from the parapets, even while her eyes took on a bluish tint.

"Get back from there, you aren't supposed-"

"Zu'tour l' vith phor" Drusilia barked, scanning forth over the sea of undead. Immediately she let a smile grace her lips before she pointed, "Fire ahead of him there!"

Sergeant Verynna frowned rushing forward asking the obvious question, "Before who?"

"Godhand Striker, he's carving his way in..." The huntress replied simply. The archers immediately nocked arrows, and fired into the fray shooting forth in an effort to thin the mass of undead flesh before the mercenary. The Drow shook her head before she hissed, "Need's more firepower...that's not going to be enough if he's going for the general..."

Sergeant Verynna moved beside the huntress looking as the white haired mercenary cleaved through the ranks of undead before she hissed, "No, its not. I'm going to run to the other towers and have them concentrate fire. Maybe if we focus our efforts we can help him make it through the hordes."

Drusilia shook her head before she spoke, "I'd have to go, I'm the only one that can spot him easily."

"Why is that?"

"Because while you can see him now, I can find him by looking where there isn't magic. His sheath drains magic from the area, and he has to be reaching a full capacity on it soon. I'll be able to tell them where to look for him by following the path where the magic isn't," Drusilia replied firmly.

Sergeant Verynna nodded, "Go, I'll have one of my faster elves run with you, to make sure someone doesn't perform an act of vigilante justi-"

She stopped, seeing the Drow had already run off down the parapets to the next tower.

[Godhand]

It was quite a sight to see. Normally, charging such a huge number of enemies wouldn't be as visually impressive since they had the sense to move out of the way. Not Xem'Zund's army. They just shambled forward; sightless, fearless, lifeless. Godhand rushed right into the thick of it immediately, bursting through the first line of them through sheer power. The second and third waves were much closer together, so much so that they appeared to be one seething mass of putrified flesh. The mercenary didn't hesitate. He charged again, arms tense and outstretched as he drove through the zombie lines. His arms were rigid as steel and mowing down undead after undead with every haphazard swing of his fists.

Bodies were flung ludicrous distances as Godhand powered through the zombie horde like a rampaging elephant. Every time the mercenary felt a moan next to his ear or felt a hand grasp at his back, he flung his body into that direction to quash any coordination of attack. Zombies were slow; they couldn't process information as quick as the living could. If you didn't let them scare you and managed to react quickly to their actions, you could allay further attacks and keep them confused and helpless.

The swordsman made a misstep and before he knew it he was pinned beneath a group of undead soldiers. Good god, it stunk in there. It stunk worse than the catacombs. And he could feel more and more of the creatures shambling on top of him even as the ones nearest to him attempted to find still living flesh with their virulent maws. And it was there, under that mountain of putrid flesh, with every single one of his sensibilities offended that Godhand snapped.

It must have seemed almost comical from the outside. That huge pile of zombie flesh beginning to shake, then the bodies composing it suddenly flying in every direction as if hurled by some invisible force. And there, at ground zero, was the man himself. The scent of rot clung to him like a desperate whore. And he was not unhurt. After charging the lines of an army, how couldn't he be? Rusted blades hung off his back, buried just under the skin. His blood was pouring out unto his black jacket, making it glisten with every shift of his body. It was almost beautiful. He looked like a bull, unsteady and covered with blood, with the matador's many pins hanging from his flesh.

But he felt like a bull, too. And it was as that raging bull surveyed the battlefield and spied that miserable dwarf that he charged. The voices in his head were deafening.

Gore, Gore, GORE