Well, new story and once again its not mine. Standered disclaimers, I don't own anything here, my friend owns the concept and the world, and D&D belongs to WotC... I think... Below is his personal pledge.
If you read this story, please review it, I insist. It's one thing to know that someone has read your story, and another to have constructive criticism.
The world I am using is my own, so if any details are sketchy I may explain them at a later date as part of the story.
Also, please be brutally honest.
T.E Azan
Oath
Chapter 1: Standing Ground
Such brutality had I not witnessed before. Our small village, a pitiful prize for even the lowliest of bandits, was struck in the night- they came from the edge of the forest, as quiet as a mouse scurrying around the roots of a long dead tree.
I was asleep in my tree at the time. After cooing the children to sleep, I went to bed myself, glancing out of the hollowed out window. The night, beckoning to me, telling me to forget the children and hunt, be free in the forest, and be one with the forest.
I turned my head. Such is the lure for a pure bred Elf. The call is always there, silent at first, but slowly building into a raging inferno of wanton chaos.
That is why I followed the way of Riadenal. My mother had lost her mind to the forest, eventually taking her own life in her lust for freedom. Riadenal is the Saviour, the God of Valour, Law and Mounted Combat. Since Mother's death, I have been a paladin of his cause.
To my friends and distant family, this has made me an outcast in their eyes. I did not follow the ways of Gerthen, the Earth Lord. But a paladin casts her eye away from such rejection- I could give myself only to Him.
I awoke with my head searing in pain, and the smell of burning coming to my nose. Above me stood a hideous man, his face wracked with scars and his eyes full of blood rage. He had hit me with his club.
"Who are you?" I whispered, drawing my knife from the side of the pillow with my right arm, which had sprawled to the side in the night.
"Quiet, bitch. You're lucky you're alive- but you're going to wish you were dead after I've raped the hell out of you…" he said, a grin emerging on his face.
I pulled the knife out from under the pillow, hurled off the covers and lashed a kick at his temple. Not being one for unarmed combat, I missed, but it was a feint. He lunged with his club clumsily, and I dodged to the side. He had fallen onto the end of my bed.
In silence, I gripped the back of his neck, ignoring the foul gaping wounds in his flesh- possibly from earlier battles- and drew the knife across the front side of it.
"So what are you gonna do, huh, bitch? You're going to kill me?"
"Precisely." I breathed, and slashed. Foul, corrupted blood spurted onto my bed sheets, and I cringed. Who were these intruders?
I whipped open my chest and took all the equipment out of it- my trusty mace, Oath, a mace forged by my father, fitted perfectly into my hands. I strapped my training armour (just a simple breastplate) on, not willing to put on my full gear when lives were possibly at stake…
The children! my mind screamed to me, and I went into their rooms. Alsin and Devia slept peacefully, oblivious of the death and destruction surrounding them. I smiled a small smile, and then sprinted downstairs, my mind screaming for blood.
I was greeted with a harsh, raging inferno, engulfing the village. From the east marched a grim raiding party- up front were masses of undead abominations, shambling and groaning an unholy lament. Behind them were armoured regiments with pole arms, cackling and howling. Some humans had already breached our poor defences- our militia was in tatters, beating down the zombies with righteous vigour, only to be bitten from behind.
About twenty zombies branched off from the horde of soldiers and went towards my home, sensing the hot, brash blood that I had and the young born who had just awoken. I had locked them in for there own safety- what little they had.
I screamed a war-cry I did not even know I had heard and swung upwards at a zombie, taking off his face in a gruesome blow. It howled in agony and collapsed backwards.
"Back!" I cried, and swung sideways this time, fending off the three who had taken his place. They clumsily fell back to dodge the blow, and succeeded. My arm was in pain from the weight of Oath, and my discipline had gone out of the window. My mind was searing with thoughts, worries and fears which I had only just encountered, just faced, and one emotion rose above them all: hatred. Hatred for these damned people, who dared to attack my home, my people!
"Smite evil!" I shouted, and did a downwards swing unto the group of zombies. I was soon embroiled in their deathly embrace. I could not swing Oath, my arms were being pinned and I soon collapsed against the steps of my home. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see my husband fighting at the gate against the armoured humans, but he was cast down with one blow- he was no warrior. His eyes rolled back into his head and his blood seeped into the soil. He was dead.
I sobbed as I was bitten on the neck by one of the undead beasts and left to die. The bite they gave was cold and bitter, and I heard the tearing of flesh as they feasted. My strength grew weaker and weaker, until I could take no more and slipped into what I thought was unconsciousness. Sounds grew duller and duller and faded into nothing, like petals floating in a heavy breeze, going to distant lands unknown.
The last thing I heard was the slow cackling of someone- possibly Human- and the death cries of my husband. I could hear weeping and screaming from within my home.
My children…. my children!
I pushed all my energy into my legs, but still I could not move. Damn the undead! Damn their eyes! In my mind, I swore an oath to myself. An oath to rid the world of these creatures, these vestiges of rot and decay. They had killed my family, and I would respond in kind by killing them, their kindred. Those who had created them I would not pity or forgive, but only respond with the utmost courage to purify their kind of all evil they had incubated over the years.