Tenshi came in second place. Ultimately, Sal (Cezaria) and I flipped a coin to decide the winner xD
The Road to Perdition by Tenshi (TenshiNoAkuma)
Nithalya gritted her teeth as she drove her half-pike into a wraith's skull, breaking the throbbing red seal scratched into the back. The ghastly thing scraped at her shield before exploding into a bloodless pile of ash. But the wraith's fall would hardly make any difference to the swarming mass of undead pouring through the towering gates of Glastheim. The gated city's blackened metal ribs pointed to the sky where the crows circled warily. The forces of Geffen, bolstered by aid from Prontera, Al de Baran, Payon, every major city, were still horribly outnumbered. Nithalya couldn't take comfort in the hollow victories of every undead downed, not when there were hundreds, thousands more to take their place.
Garduc fought beside her, the maul he wielded smashing through any undead that dared to cross his path. Nithalya envied the crusader's ability to simply cleave his way through the undead; he was had been brought up to fight undead while she duelled living opponents. Garduc had often told her it was His Light that gave him the strength to smite the unholy beings. He radiated holy strength, perseverance and a will that was almost tangible. When he could destroy the undead before him with such grim authority, as if he was burning them to ashes with his light, Nithalya could almost believe they might make it out from this godforsaken land alive.
Until yet another of their brethren would fall.
"Fall back! Fall back!" The cry was taken up and echoed through the lines.
Even Garduc didn't complain. The foothills outside Glastheim were littered with their dead comrades as they were slowly pushed back towards Geffen. A grim shadow had passed over this land, the land where the downtrodden earth would drink the blood of the slain. Nithalya wanted to ask the crusader, Where is your Light that will save us? Where is He when we need Him most?
They couldn't even bring back their lost and loved ones; they were all given up to the undead like a bloody sacrifice to appease some sick god.
The living retreated, abandoning the dead while whispering hollow promises for vengeance. Soon, the circling crows would swoop down on the corpses, a grisly feast, and then the ash would slowly settle.
"…Who are you?"
The cloaked one shifted his oak staff from one hand to the other. The twisted black feathers dangled from the gnarled wood like swinging bodies on the gallows. "I am one who has wandered this mortal plane in search of power."
"Then why do you come to us? We have none, for we would not be losing this battle if it were not so…"
Nithalya wished the bridges leading to Geffen were made of wood; then she could burn them and be done with the undead plague. Although that would leave the magic city to starve to death inside its walls, at the moment, she preferred that to giving in to those foul creatures. In any case, the bridges' huge steel and concrete pylons and rust spotted chains could not be moved or destroyed without any cost. Any earth spell powerful enough to collapse the ground holding them would also send the island city tumbling into the River Styx encircling it. It was a pity, because the undead swarmed over the land, passing over it like a thundercloud's shadow. Only, unlike the shadow, the undead would not pass quickly.
She saw the monstrous undead army, larger than a plague. Onward they surged, abhorrent spawns of Glastheim, all swarming towards Geffen with weapons raised in a show of tireless power. Suddenly, the helmet upon her head felt like a cage, trapping her in this soldier's duty to stand and fight. But she had to fight. It was their duty to fight even if their enemy was something they couldn't win against, because if they didn't fight the undead, no one would.
Nithalya turned her gaze to the sky, not wanting to stare at the rows upon rows of the blackened skeletons. There was one lone cloud, a mere wisp of white almost snuffed out by the overwhelming blue. None of the birds, none of the sky petites roamed the air; only the black crows, circling like vultures. The vast emptiness of the sky felt unnatural to her, like it knew what was about to take place and had fled to safety. It was as if the heavens themselves could not bear to look upon Geffen and its hell-spawned guests.
She swapped the empty sky for hollow, staring eyes. Nithalya wanted to alleviate the tension with a laugh, but she couldn't muster anything more than dry twist of her mouth. Garduc slowly blinked and gave her a weary smile. He shifted the grip on his maul while Nithalya's gauntleted fingers tensed around her spear.
"Are you ready?" he whispered, wraith-like.
The undead were almost upon them.
A horn's reverberating tone penetrated the land. As if to signal their doom, the heavens split and meteorites from the wizards rained from the skies, burning the sky red in their fiery wake. They reminded Nithalya of stories of the Armageddon and Ragnarok; she always thought the heavens would be on fire when the world met its end.
Geffen's final front lines met the rush of the undead forces. Nithalya's half-pike found its mark in yet another skeletal seal, and the crusader beside her crushed another one's skull. But there were still more and more, hundreds and hundreds. The undead's numbers were just as endless as before. Nothing had changed except these were their last lines, their final battle ground.
She saw flashes of magic up on the walls and retaliation from the undead's own magicians. The earth before the wall heaved, as if it would split asunder and send all those doomed souls standing there tumbling into the fiery depths of hell. The darkness was momentarily repelled when light suddenly spread over part of the ground. Growing brighter, it rose up to the heavens, obliterating any undead in its path for the briefest, ephemeral moment. But then the heavens closed and the darkness returned, darker than ever. These weak, puny mortal magics weren't going to be enough to save them.
They needed something more.
"I have seen your peoples' plight and come to you with an offer of a pittance of my power. I am offering you salvation, a means to defeat your enemy."
Bird shadows trawled the ground like a torn net. The tattered banners of human life flapped forlornly in the weak wind. The multicoloured hues of Geffen's walls, dulled from the undead infestation, had blood splashed on its sides as an occultist's offering. Death cries were echoed by the circling crows in a dirge-like opera.
Nithalya wanted to scream, bestial, primal. Where was the Light that would save them? Where was that Light that could burn through the undead ranks with a line of holy fire? Why wouldn't He help them, His children in need?
Nithalya faced off yet another skeleton, its empty skull dull and emotionless. It couldn't express the emotions of the flesh, but even its fleshless mouth seemed to be laughing at her, laughing at her for believing in one who would not show His power.
"What will your help cost us?"
She wiped that smile off its face when she knocked the skull off its spine with her shield and crushed it under her heavy greaves. When she raised her head, though, there were thousands more of those grinning skulls. Rows upon rows of them laughed as they swarmed onward, unharmed under the broad light of day. Nithalya thrust her half-pike into the eye socket of another, breaking that unholy blood seal keeping them in the land of the living.
A battle cry from her left ripped through the air, a primal cry of defiance. She almost didn't realise such a bestial sound had come from the calm, collected crusader. Nithalya thought she knew him, but when she saw Garduc crush those walking bones with such vengeance, such fanaticism, she saw the light falter from its path.
They were losing themselves in this battle for their lives.
"Nothing. All I ask for is the acceptance of my aid."
The darkness and shadows were slowly choking, slowly strangling the light from the land. The bony skeletons were slowly drawing the noose around their necks with unwavering certainty. Nithalya was tempted to give in, to surrender herself into those grasping hands that would pull her through the earth into the abyss. She wanted to give her soul to the damned denizens of hell so she didn't need to feel this despair. She wanted to fight without consequence, without feeling the pain, to lay waste to all before her without feeling the bite of the dark.
But that reminded her too much of how the empty, soulless undead before her fought.
So she fought on with what mind she had left, her helmeted, harrowed face a living reflection of the hollow heads she battled. Garduc's maul smashed through his opponents, but even the holy aura he carried about him like a shield was beginning to flicker. Gone were the talks of Light, gone was the passion of the fight; all that remained were the heavy swings of his maul. He was not the only one of their number who fought with their emotions deadened to the havoc around them. The constant falls in battle and the relentless assault from the dead were taking their toll, until they almost forgot who they were. Their sunken faces were ghostly impersonations of their past lives. The living were fighting like the dead, and the dead surged on.
A loud, clear voice penetrated through the wall of apathy they had built around themselves. "We have a breach! Rally to me! Rally!"
"Then we accept. May God have mercy on your soul if you are proven false."
Nithalya heard the call taken up by others. Her fellow soldiers rushed to the breached wall like blood to a wound. She hoarsely took up the cry with her dry, cracked throat, hearing it slowly die in the echoes. The knuckles under her gauntlet bleached as she gripped her half-pike tighter to drive it into the skull of another skeleton. Nithalya slowly made her way to join the others swarming towards Geffen's open wound, her shield defiantly bearing bone white scratches on its surface. But when there was an absence of the light that fought beside her, she numbly realised the one who guided her with talks of hope was not beside her. The presence she had gotten so used to, the reason she had not fallen yet, was missing.
She turned to search for the flickering light in the overwhelming darkness…
…and saw him fall.
"Do not fear. I swear to you in the holy name of the Light, your soldiers' lives will not be wasted."
"Garduc!" she cried, breaking from the rush of her comrades-in-arms to run to him. Undead were surrounding her, their hollow eyes beckoning. Ash-grey they were, living ashes coming to choke the life from the world. Nithalya fought them off, drove them away from her fallen friend, but it was only a matter of time before she couldn't fight anymore. She would fall just like him, and dust and ashes would settle.
Garduc lay prone in the grass, looking like the broken statue of an angel pushed over in the Pronteran riots.
"Garduc! Come on, you holier than thou freaking bastard! Get up!" She could see the horrible gaping wound in his chest, blood welling up and weeping with every faint heartbeat until it had no more tears left to cry. "Goddamnit to hell, you can't be dead! You can't be!" She could feel droplets of water trickle down her dirty cheeks. The protection granted to him by the Light he swore by with such conviction had failed him. The armour he wore had not protected him and her own meagre bindings wouldn't protect her either. The helmets they wore, the righteous emblems upon their armour, they all meant nothing. She was a walking corpse on the road to perdition.
"Get up!" she screamed, throwing a final prayer to the unmerciful heavens.
As if some unholy god had heard her cry, Garduc's bloody body lurched to its feet, taking stumbling steps towards battle. The heavy bladed sword of a skeleton swung towards the reanimated Garduc. Nithalya saw in horror as a bony arm ripped itself through the crusader's armour and caught the sword. Contorting invisible muscles, the skeletal hand shattered the blade. Bile rose up to her throat as she saw more skeletal bones rip through Garduc's flesh and armour, shuddering while it fought, as if it was disposing of its undesirable fleshy restrains. Its hollow, empty skull tore through Garduc's holy visage and began to fight, fighting for life even though it had none. It made her sick to the stomach, watching the reanimated skeleton pick up Garduc's maul and wield the weapon as if it was its own. It radiated unholy might, doing what holy strength could not. Unable to keep her eyes on the abomination that had risen from her comrade's corpse, she turned her eyes to the rest of Geffen.
Wave upon wave of bleached white bones were slowly rising.
"God have mercy on us all," she whispered, the whisper of the living dead. Their slain were rising, rising and fighting once more.
They had become the very things they had fought against.
Many of her fellow soldiers, all enclosed too tightly within their emotionless cocoon, solemnly rejoiced at the turn in the battle. The white undead fought side by side with their living counterparts, slowly driving back the Glastheimian scourge. They had been offered a thin wire of uneasy hope and they grasped at it with worn, weary hands.
Nithalya wanted to destroy the abominations, wanted to take up Garduc's maul and smash them. Because she knew that even if they managed to fend off the Glastheim invasion, in the end, only the ashes and the charcoal crows would emerge victorious.
Nithalya didn't see the khalitzburg until it was too late. The monstrous undead's sword tore right through her pathetically weak shield and armour. The jagged tip of its sword looked like a spine, a bony spine that showed her how flimsy the living flesh was. Nithalya stumbled back a few steps, barely comprehending the blood pouring out of her ashen body. Her torn flesh, edges lacerated from the sword's jagged path, became a gaping maw spitting out her distasteful innards. Bleached-white bones protruded from the dark blood like crumbling chalk smeared on tar. She saw burning ashes and hanging flesh and circling crows before she fell to her knees to join the ranks of the fallen.
She thought Garduc's Light would show her the way, but the light was overshadowed by a grim skull staring down at her with hollow eyes.
"Your sacrifice will not be in vain."
Tellie's comments: I liked the imagery too :3
Sal's comments:
I must say you had me freaked a bit XD. But in this case it is a good thing since this is a horror story contest. Imageries were lovely, could really feel the desperation that was building up from the beginning until the latter parts of the story. I loved how the story has a pulse to it, a rhythm. There was only one part I felt that wasn't powerful enough, Garduc's skeleton ripping out through his flesh was freaky awesome. However I felt that Nithalya's reactions lacked the same impact the rest of the story had. But all in all, a good job done.