Third Target: The Dark Apothecary

[Godhand]

(Closed)

Godhand slowly raised his hand in the air, taking quiet pride in the fact that the undead shrunk away from it, before bringing it down with a chop over the head of the war-magi he had held by the shoulder. The man's head recoiled as if blasted by a shotgun and his body went limp in the mercenary's grip. Godhand gave a quick snort to clear his sinuses of the smell of rot before dropping the now neutralized zombie and scanning the remainder of his troops for anyone looking to make a move.

He was surrounded by a small contingent of Rangers. Well, they'd once been Rangers. At some time during their sleep the warriors had been turned by Xem'Zund; so great was the Necromancer's power that the formerly proud elven defenders did not even have to be bitten to be turned into his thralls. And, of course, it fell to Godhand to put them down for the long rest after they switched over to the Scourge's side. It didn't matter to him, obviously; he didn't know any of those guys. But a lot of other elves would have had serious qualms about murdering their own kind before they began to show any outward signs of zombification.

What remained of the corrupted Rangers were now much more disorganized. Now that he'd slain the person who had been, in life, their leader, they seemed to blankly await orders from Xem'Zund himself or one of his generals before taking any further action. That was probably the downside to being turned without actually being infected, at least for Xem'Zund; once their immediate leader was vanquished and without anybody there to give them orders, they simply reverted into vacant-eyed statues. Had any of them actually been bitten, they'd be mindlessly shambling towards Godhand like the animals they were.

Now that their wasn't any real danger, the swordsman was free to pick them off at his leisure. One of the things that pissed Godhand off the most about killing zombies was unless they were burned or dismembered, they were always still potentially at the Necromancer's beck and call. And since the gunman couldn't go around starting fires everywhere he went, this usually meant he had to go through a very messy, tiring process to neutralize them with any finality. Sure, he could have waved his sheath over them and taken them out for good, but the archmage that'd enchanted it had warned him against overloading the vacuum, so for the moment he had to do it by hand.

It was as the warrior tore off the last of the creature's arms that he finally wiped his brow, climbed unto his wagon and set a course for the nearest town. He knew this sort of thing didn't count; there were still four of the Scourge's high generals to go. Unless he neutralized them as well, the elves would keep on struggling with a losing war.