It had been such a good day.
Work on the guard towers was nearing completion. The mechanics were busy preparing traps for the next inevitable goblin invasion. The windmills were creaking in the crisp mountain air, the crops were in full bloom, and food and ale were plentiful. The marksdwarves complained good-naturedly about having to practice in the sun, but the glare and heat were far preferable to the horrors of cave adaptation. From the barracks came the clanking and grunting of the melee squad honing their skills.
A sudden goblin attack had left the fort wary, and several dwarves had been found in their beds, bloodless, desiccated. A vampire was on the loose, somewhere, but they had yet to slip up.
Ringwild's walls were strong. Its forges were hot, its craftsmen were legend, its halls were vast and opulent. And the Windy Grains knew of these treasures, of the riches to be had. And so they came.
The smell of death on the air.
The horror of fifty corpses, trudging in unison towards the walls.
The shrieks of a goblin ambush, torn to shreds by rotting hands.
The shouts of panicking dwarves, ordering the walls sealed.
The masons were the first to fall. Fearlessly running to the breach, stones in tow, attempting to shore up the gap. Bolts whizzed past them, lodging uselessly in shambling flesh. Decaying hands, ripping, tearing, striking.
The melee squad charged. Two corpses fell, three, four, and then the horde was upon them. Dwarf after dwarf, ripped apart, lives cut short at the hands of the undead.
The rest of the fort was soon among the ranks of the dead, raised back into unholy motion by dark powers.
Except one.
He stood in the main courtyard, axe flashing left to slice off a leg, right to sever an arm, back, forth, an impenetrable wall of razor-sharp iron. He darted from zombie to zombie, reducing the undead to piles of butchered meat. He was known to Ringwild as Nomald Cobaltseasons, the elderly, battle-scarred master of the axe.
For months he fought the undead, searching for the invisible masters of the rotting army, to no avail. He fought without tire, without food without drink, single-mindledy crushing every undead abomination in his view, seemingly blind to their inevitable reanimation moments later.
Until, one day, he stopped. He hadn't eaten, hadn't drank, hadn't laid down for months.
He dropped his axe.
He wandered back into the halls of Ringwild, parched, but the stocks of alcohol did not beckon him.
He passed barrels filled to the brim with the feasts of master chefs, starving, but did not stop.
Nomald walked (slower, now, than before) the familiar smooth path towards the masonry, ignoring the piles of furniture that had never been used, would never be used...
And, as the spirits of his restless comrades swirled around the room, he began to carve, slowly, painstakingly, a coffin, and a large slab of rock.
He dragged them both to the center hall of Ringwild; once the Stronghold of the Sabres of Helping, now the Slaughterhouse of the Windy Grains.
He took up hammer and chisel with shaking hands, carved the slab as best he could. (Four hundred thirty-two years of life, and not a single engraving to his name.)
And, with a final effort, he hauled himself into his coffin. He closed his eyes, and waited for the wailing spirits to end the long, bloody history of Nomald Cobaltseasons, known to the rest of the world as Das Clincheddreamy, the Unkempt Word of Splashes, murderer of five in Ringwild and thousands more elsewhere; vampire.
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Topic: Welcome to Ringwild, Fortress of the Dead. Population: 1. (Read 799 times)