"'In order to defend Asgarnia from a recent invasion, your status in the Imperial Guard is hereby changed from inactive to active duty. Report to the military training camp in Burthope in 30 minutes. There, you will be briefed on the situation and given your orders. Sincerely, Commander Grant Tucker; Supreme Commander of Asgarnian military forces.' Just great…Skyla! Come downstairs!" Edward Walker was a lieutenant colonel in the Imperial Guard, and until recently, was retired. His wife, Elena, was killed as a political attack on him seven years ago, so he had been raising his daughter, Skyla, as a single parent since she was 6 months old. "Skyla, Daddy has to go on a little trip. Are you ok to stay with Mr. Turael for a few weeks?" Turael was a retired demon slayer, and had opened a school in Burthope to instruct younger warriors in the art of slaying. Edward had become acquainted with him when he had been dispatched to settle a violent fight that had broken out in his school. Since then, Edward and Turael had become good friends, and after Elena's death, Turael agreed to look after Skyla should Edward be called into combat or suddenly die.
"Why, Daddy? I like Mr. Turael, but why do you have to go away?" Skyla asked with large eyes and a tone that only a child could produce, one that begged pity. It was apparent that, since she never knew her mother, she didn't want her father to leave for any extended period of time.
"Well, some mean people have hurt our friends in other parts of Asgarnia, and it's my job to make sure these mean people get put in time out." It was difficult for Edward to explain war to a child of only 7 years old. He didn't want her to know just how dangerous war could be, and not even he himself had any idea how slim the chances of victory in this fight were.
"Oh, ok. Do you promise you'll come home soon, Daddy?" Skyla seemed to understand in her own childlike way what her father had to do, but didn't seem to fully grasp what he was saying, much to Edward's relief.
Edward paused for a moment to think. "Yes, sweetie, I promise I'll come home just as soon as I can." He thought to himself 'I hope to Guthix that's a promise I can keep….' He picked up his daughter, and they walked to Turael's house just up the road.
Edward knocked on the door, and heard an aging voice from inside shout "Just a minute….STOP THAT!! WHAT DID I TELL YOU ABOUT THROWING SPEARS AT STUDENTS WITH NO ARMOR ON?!?!" He opened the door, and looked surprised. "Ah, Edward! And young Miss Skyla. What can I do for the two of you today?"
"Turael, can I speak to you alone for a moment? Skyla, go play in the garden and stay out of trouble, Daddy has to talk to Mr. Turael for a minute." The child did as she was told, and Edward turned back to Turael. "Asgarnia has declared war, and it looks like a bad one. I don't know any details, but if they pull an old soldier like me out of retirement, then you know we're in trouble. I have 10 minutes to report to camp. Would it be alright if I left Skyla with you until this campaign is over?"
"Of course! The girl's always a pleasure. I do have one concern, however. Edward, you know better than anyone that people die in wars. What if you're one of those people? I'm happy to care for Skyla, but how am I supposed to tell her that her daddy's never coming back?" Turael posed a good point; Edward had promised he'd return. How was Turael supposed to explain it if he didn't?
"I'll come back. Don't worry. You know me, Turael. You know it takes more than a few arrows to kill me." Edward seemed to convince Turael that he would survive, or at least that there was nothing they could do, given the short amount of time he had. He walked to where his daughter was playing, and picked her up. He kissed her on the cheek, and said "I've got to meet with my friends at the camp. I'll be back just as soon as I can. Be a good girl for Turael. I love you."
He set her down and she ran to the door. "Bye Daddy!" After her father disappeared from view, she went inside with Turael.
As Edward walked toward the camp, he began to worry slightly. "What if I do die in this war? Who's are we at war with? We haven't been at war since our war with Misthalin, and that was 40 years ago…" He continued to ponder about what could have started this war, and with whom the war was, until he arrived at the Imperial Guard training camp.
When Edward arrived at the camp, he saw several hundred soldiers in a massive crowd before a raised podium where a man stood. This man was General Ghommal, the commander of the Imperial Guard and founder of the Warriors' Guild. "Alright soldiers, here's the situation. A man from Canfis known as Zezima appeared in the Wilderness north of Falador about 2 months ago. Until last week, he'd been minding his own business. A mage from Varrok, Lucia Deck, was walking through the Wilderness when he murdered her. Roy Deck, her wife, went after him, seeking revenge, and was murdered also. About 9 hours ago, Zezima marched into Falador with a massive zombie army, including the resurrected corpse of Roy Deck, and burned the city to the ground and devoured everyone within. The entire military of Asgarnia is gathering at Port Sarim, his next expected target, in an attempt to stop, or at least weaken, his army. We will march down through Taverly, and past the dark wizard's tower, and from there go southeast into Port Sarim to meet up with the few remaining White Knights and Asgarnian army. Any questions?" It was obvious that the general wanted to end this briefing as quickly as possible and move the soldiers into position for the battle. "Alright, if there are no questions, then we'll move out. Let's go!" With that, the entire Imperial Guard, nearly 700 soldiers, marched out of Burthope and towards Port Sarim.
Stephen had grown much more comfortable with the Fremmenik in Rellekka, and no longer showed any shyness whatsoever. He asked Thorvald, the most powerful Fremmenik warrior to train him to become strong. He didn't mention his desire to kill Zezima to avenge his parents' deaths, because he knew that Thorvald wouldn't agree to train him for that purpose, but he got the impression that Thorvald suspected that was his reason. He trained him nonetheless, however.
"No, no, no. You're holding the shield too far out, you're leaving the entire right half of your body unprotected. When you go to attack, cover your entire torso with your shield so that if they counterattack, their sword will cut your shield and not your gut," Thorvald scolded Stephen at his improper fighting form.
"Excuse me, gentlemen, I have some…..disturbing….news." Andy walked into the room, obviously shaken from the quivering of his voice. "Thorvald, will you come with me?" As Thorvald and Andy stepped out of the training room, Stephen began to wonder about what the two were talking that was so secretive.
"Alright, Mr. Raynor, what is so important that you interrupt my training session?" Thorvald spoke as though he were annoyed, but his carefree tone of voice gave light to his true mood.
"Haha…Forgive me for interrupting, but I thought you might like to know that the entire Asgarnian military is currently engaged in a virtually unwinnable battle in Port Sarim against Zezima and an army of zombies that he raised from the dead using the art of necromancy," Andy said, putting Thorvald in a state of complete shellshock.
"…..Now run that by me again….I could have sworn you said the entire army of Asgarnia was fighting a battle that they can't possibly win against an army of zombies. Do you have any idea how fucked up that sounds?" Thorvald was obviously in disbelief at the incredible story, but closer examination of his body language would reveal that he was also struck with a deep rooted fear, as well. Thorvald knew that nothing good comes from an undead army. Not only were they impossible to intimidate, but how does one kill what is already dead? That's what makes armies of the undead so difficult to combat.
"I'm afraid you have it right. At this moment, Sir Amik is leading the armies of Asgarnia against this army in an attempt to weaken the undead force as much as possible in order to give the armies of Al-Kharid and Misthalin a better chance to repel them when the zombies move into their territories."
Thorvald was quite obviously shaken by this report. "Alright. "Thanks, Andy. Inform Brundt of the situation, please. I feel sure he'll want to get the Rellikkan army ready in case they move this way."
"Of course. You had better get back to your training, Thorvald. We don't want the boy to go without a working knowledge of swordplay, now do we?" Andy then left to speak with Brundt about the conflict in Asgarnia.
In Port Sarim, the Asgarnian military was in position and was waiting for Zezima's hoard to come. They waited for hours, and some soldiers began to feel that Amik was wrong, and that Zezima's next action wasn't to attack Port Sarim. After nearly 7 hours of waiting, when night had well set in, they began to hear noise from the directions of the ruins where Falador once stood. One of the watchmen ran to the military encampment, reporting that he had seen the army move out of the walls of Falador and begin to march to Port Sarim. Sure enough, a thunderous noise was heard, and the earth beneath their feet trembled as the massive hoard approached the soldiers.
"Alright men, this is it! This is the moment we have been waiting for. Fight like you've never fought before! Archers, open fire as soon as they're in range!" Sir Amik shouted at the army, getting them ready for the fight about to erupt.
Among the archers was Edward Walker. He raised his bow and drew an arrow. 'Alright,' he thought to himself, 'a longbow made of magic wood with poison runite tipped arrows…If this doesn't kill them, nothing will…' When the zombie hoard came into range, he let his arrow fly loose. With the release of Edward's arrow, over 200 arrows proceeded to rain down on the hoard, felling nearly 70 of them. "ALRIGHT, RANGERS, LET 'EM HAVE IT!!" Edward screamed, firing a volley of arrows at a single time.
General Ghommal drew his sword, a massive two handed sword forged in the dwarven armories of Keldagrim, and charged at the hoard. Mercilessly slashing away at the zombie army, he noticed one zombie that had impressive looking armor. The zombie at which he was looking was Roy Deck. As soon he realized this, Ghommal cut path to the undead legend and began a one on one fight. He knew that he was the strongest Asgarnian warrior, and that if anyone stood a chance to kill the zombie Deck, it was him. They spent nearly twenty minutes slashing away at each other before someone hit. As Ghommal swung his mighty blade at Roy, he felt a sharp pain in his shoulder, and looked to see the zombie's sword piercing his left shoulder blade. He cut off Roy's sword arm and sliced the zombie corpse clean in half at the stomach. With Deck dead once again, he took a moment to breathe and rest, but it would be this rest that would cost him his life; as he tried to stop the bleeding in his chest, he felt the most unbearable pain he'd ever experienced in his chest. He looked down to see a steel bolt piercing his chest, and turned around to see a zombie gnome holding a crossbow. The zombie fired another bolt between Ghommal's eyes, and the once god-like general fell over dead.
Amik, unaware of Ghommal's death, was hacking away at zombies, making his once bleach white armor a dingy and disgusting shade of burgundy. As he fought his way through the mass of reanimated corpses, he noticed one of them had a more natural color to his flesh. As he got closer he recognized the man he saw; it was Zezima. Amik watched as Zezima slayed a dozen men with a single sweep of his sword. 'That blade must have the blessing of Zamorak, there's no other way it could possess such power…' Amik thought to himself.
He decided to take advantage of the chaos and try to kill Zezima. He went on a mad charge, literally bursting through zombies that stood in his path. When he was behind Zezima, he brought up his sword, and was about to bring it down into Zezima's back when he suddenly stopped. He was paralyzed, he couldn't move. He looked down to see a small, green dagger inbedded in his stomach, and Zezima's left hand holding the dagger as he slaughtered Asgarnian soldiers with the sword in his right. "You didn't honestly think that I'd be that easy to kill, did you Amik? Really, I expected the leader of the White Knights to be a bit smarter than that," Zezima said as he killed another wave of Imperial Guardsmen.
"Heh…At least I tried….And who knows…Maybe I might succeed." As Amik said this, he dropped his sword and it stabbed right through Zezima's left shoulder and severed his arm.
"Ugh….Damn you to hell….Just you wait, I'll get my revenge…" With that, Zezima teleported away from the battle.
Amik, beginning to feel the effects of the poison dagger, fell to the ground, breathing hard. "Saradomin, as I lie on this blood-soaked battlefield dying, I pray that you forgive me for being unable to save Falador, and unable to kill Zezima….." Amik, content having said his final prayer to his god, let the poison shut down his brain and allowed himself to slip into an endless sleep.
"Keep those arrows flying! We're winning! We're actually winning!!" There were zombie archers, but they were far fewer in number than Edward had expected. "Come on, dodge their arrows and embed yours in their heads!" He let arrows fly at the rate of nearly 60 a minute. Arrows hissed by his head, and one came so close that it drew blood on his cheek. He saw his fellow archers fall one by one, which clued him in that he needed to take more cover and watch his position in relation to the enemies. After a few more minutes he realized that his quiver was empty. "Damn…Good thing I came prepared…" He drew the sword he kept at his waist and climbed down from the house from which he was firing his arrows and joined the melee brawl below. Far more chaotic than he expected, he nearly lost his head in the first minute of his engagment. Once he got the feel of the battle, however, things went much more smoothly. He saw the elite soldiers of the Varrok Royal Guard, and fought his way in that direction. "COMMANDER TUCKER!! COMMANDER TUCKER, ARE YOU STILL ALIVE???"
"What? Who's shouting at me??"
"Commander Tucker, I'm Edward Walker, one of the archers from the Imperial Guard! Do you know if any of the White Knights are still alive?"
"No, they're all dead, as are most of the Imperial Guard! Shut up and fight, we've almost won this thing!" Tucker continued to hack at zombies in front of him, and Edward did likewise.
Over two hours later, through the smoke of fire and stench of rotting flesh, Commander Tucker surveyed the battlefield. "Well, boys….We did it," he said, "We won. Amik, Saradomin rest his soul, didn't think we could do it, but we actually won. Lieutenant, how many soldiers are left alive?"
An exhausted lieutenant responded "Excluding you, 6 Varrok Royal Guardsman, 23 Imperial Guardsmen, and 84 soldiers in the main army. There are 100 men in each of the other five Asgarnian cities."
"That's not nearly enough to still defend Asgarnia….Our entire military force is reduced to 614 men? We started this battle with almost 2000!" Tucker, furious at the number of casualties Asgarnia took in the battle, took all of his anger out on the lieutenant.
"Sir! With all due respect, we didn't expect to win this battle at all. I think we should all consider ourselves lucky to be alive."
Tucker sighed. "I suppose you're right. Send a message to the king informing him of the results of the battle, and requesting further instructions." Commander Tucker then walked off and issued orders for the rest of the remaining military. He walked, surveying the carnage of the battle, and thought to himself 'The lieutenant was right…Thank Saradomin I'm alive….'
