To Return

Writing Prompt from Writing Excuses - Season 01 - Episode 22 - Doing things that are unpopular

Write a scene from the point of view of a front line grunt in an undead army.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

With a wrenching feeling of vertigo, Hugh was ripped from his dead wife's embrace in heaven and slammed back into his broken and crusty body.

"UUUUUUURGH!"  He rasped with a foul exhalation of putrid spittle.

Well, he'd meant to say "Nooooooooo!" but his vocal chords had decayed somewhat in the week since he'd died.

As he shambled out from the pile of bodies that stirred around him he saw his friend Danar – half of his face missing from an axe blow on the first day of battle – stumble up next to him with moist, squelching sounds.

"GRRRROOOOGGHHHHUUAAAHHH!"

Hugh couldn't understand what his old friend was saying, but he got the gist of it. Of all the undesirable misfortunes to be had, being resurrected by the emperor's necromancers was at the very top of the list. Particularly if you were not supposed to be eligible for it.

Looking down at himself he saw that the point where the spear had pierced his stomach gaped in between the broken pieces of armor that still clung around him, and it was leaking yellowish, clotted chunks of foul smelling pus.

He sighed, blowing out half of what remained of his tongue through his bloated lips. Better get this over with, he thought.

He began to climb slowly to the edge of the pit, his feet splashing through the inches of water that had accumulated from the thunderstorm that raged all around them. It seemed that the barbarian's witches were keeping the month-long storm going, still. He hadn’t been paying much attention to the world of the living, lost again in the feeling of warmth and joy his beloved wife had always inspired.

Now he was back down in the mud and dirt, the cold and dampness, the dark and hazy fog that surrounded a mass grave. The resuscitated corpses that milled about him as he climbed out of the pit were in different states of decay. Some, like Danar and himself, only showed the wounds that had ended their stay in the mortal plain, others struggled to stand on broken legs, arms hanging by threads of greyish flesh. Some were unable to stand at all, being only torsos or even just heads, sunken eyes swirling with a green, unearthly light, mouth opening and closing ineffectually.

This is shabby battlefield procedure. The emperor’s forces must be desperate.

Standing outside the pit, he saw three of the legion’s mages – wearing the distinctive red garb of necromancers – kneeling together, holding their hands over a small altar. Their chant was incomprehensible and their eyes were rolled back into their heads. There was some sort of amulet on the pile of wood they knelt around and on its center was a large, faceted emerald. It glowed with the same swirling intensity that shone from the reanimated soldier’s eyes.

Hugh figured his eyes must be glowing as well, but he couldn’t tell.

One of the mages bowed his head and stood on shaky legs. His black hair was streaked with grey that belied his young face and he carried himself stiffly, tottering over to stand before the newly raised dead. Hugh felt sorry for the lad, having been chosen for resurrection duty. He’d probably be asked to give up more of his life force before the war was won.

Even though he knew that the mages had no more choice than he when pressed into service, Hugh seethed with anger. They had lied to him. Once you serve for a year and a day in the legion, you are exempted from undead servitude. Most of the men in his battalion had come through the ranks with him in the past year, and they had in fact been at the front a full four months beyond their respective tour of duties.

Somebody owed them an explanation. They were supposed to be enjoying their rest.

“Warriors!” the young lad’s voice cracked like a boy barely into manhood. Could he really be as young as that? Have we fallen so far?

“Your Emperor needs you!”

Shuffles and sloppy groans from the assembled undead. Hugh cast his eyes about, recognizing several of his companions from the vanguard. A couple met his gaze and shook their heads, missing noses and dangling cheeks still managing to convey annoyance and anger. Danar stood next to him, hissing through the missing half of his jaw. They were all aware of the broken promise.

“You are bound by oath to serve once more, until you can no longer be called forth. The hour of the crow is upon us!”

More coughing and hacking sounds. If Hugh could’ve rolled his eyes he would’ve, but they were probably shriveled husks by that point. He tried anyway and felt a wriggling that was surely a maggot make his left eyelid flutter. He didn’t really feel pain, more of a dull ache in his belly, and something akin to thirst, yet not quite the same.

The young necromancer lowered his voice. “I know those risen here were not expecting to see this world again, but…” he stammered, “… things have not been proceeding as foretold.” He seemed to deflate and he kept wringing his hands.

“HOOUUGHRAAAAMMMMMGHHOOOORRRR.”

It was supposed to be an ironic scatological reference to how the young mages’ mother had birthed him, but the weeks’ worth of rot from lying dead in a watery ditch only served to send the remainder of Hugh’s tongue flapping onto the ground with a dull thud.

Other undead were more physical with their displeasure, rounding on the necromancer threateningly until the other two mages joined the young man and all three shouted an incantation. Immediately Hugh felt as if a vice had clamped across his forehead, his limbs growing stiff, and he was unable to move. The necromancers continued to recite in unison, their voices crowding everything from Hugh’s mind.

A feeling of peace settled on him, but Hugh fought against it. They were being controlled, as the barbarians controlled their Draugr. It was unconscionable. One of the bylaws of the legion was that necromancers were forbidden from controlling the reanimated dead. They could call them back, but it was just a continuation of their oath of service. In life and death.

The young man was weeping. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” One of his companions placed a hand on his shoulder and spoke a command, his eyes red-rimmed as well.

Hugh and the rest turned in unison and began marching in a ragged formation. The faint light of dawn was creeping over the mountains to the east, but the raging thunderclouds above them gave short shrift to it, keeping them in perpetual gloom as they were led across the marshes back onto the Fields of Melinor. Once they crested the hill, Hugh could finally see what had happened to the emperor’s forces.

They were overrun.

The barbarians were entrenched in the very center of the valley and – barely a mile away from where they stood– what remained of the legion held a skirmish line to cover the retreat towards the capital.

 The empire is lost… Hugh thought, with a mild sense of detachment. Even though he knew he should’ve been heartbroken, he no longer felt the feverish loyalty he’d lived with ever since the barbarian’s initial incursion into their lands. He wanted to be back in heaven, with his wife.

As he plodded down the hill he noticed there were other groups of risen soldiers shuffling from the marshes out onto the fields. Hugh just wanted to be done with it. He could no longer control his corpse, so he was along for the ride as the groups of undead converged on the legion rearguard, the living soldiers shying away from their undead brothers as the necromancers drove them into the fray.

The undead soldiers threw themselves with uncoordinated strength at the barbarian forces. Hugh saw his pale and mottled hands grasp the bearded invaders around the throat with inhuman strength. Felt their skin give way underneath his blackened fingernails even as he was pierced over and over by arrows and swords.

He lost an arm. A faint tugging was all he felt. The next time he raised his hands to attack he saw a jagged spear of bone jutting from his right arm, just below the elbow, which pierced his opponent’s cheek like a hot knife through butter.

In the midst of the grim melee he felt pressure building in his head. A feeling as if someone was looking over his shoulder. As the battle raged on the feeling came back into his limbs and he stopped. He saw that most of his fellow undead had also ceased fighting.

What happened? He turned and understood why he’d regained control.

He could barely make out the red robes, surrounded by barbarian bodies hacking and hewing with blood stained axes and swords. The necromancers had given their lives, keeping their undead compatriots focused on the invaders so that the living could make their escape.

Hugh would’ve admired their sacrifice, if he’d still cared. At that moment the pressure returned, and he felt a different sort of presence slide across his thoughts. A slithering, slimy feeling that would’ve raised goosebumps on his flesh if it’d been alive.

The risen legionnaires next to him twitched for a second and began to march west, following the last of the emperor’s forces. Hugh fought against the insidious force that was threatening to overwhelm him like the necromancers had.

Turning towards the barbarians he saw one of their witches push through them, leather clad with small bones twined in her matted hair, she had a gaunt face with her jaw painted black, making it appear as if her face was a grinning skull from where blazing red eyes shone.

Danar, a few feet away from Hugh and also staring at the witch, grunted. The woman extended her hand in a twisting motion and his friend fell to his hands and knees. His tongue flopped out through the missing half of his jaw and he shook his head from side to side. After a few seconds, his struggles ceased and he stood. His eyes burned red.

Turning towards Hugh, the witch made the same motion and he felt the slithering pressure around his head again. He didn’t know that witches could take command of the dead of their enemies. Apparently this was another lie the legion had spread. The rumors were in fact true. The stories about having to battle against fallen brothers instead of beside them.

He surprised himself by resisting the onslaught. He’d thought he was beyond caring, but something that hadn’t died yet still burned within him. It wasn’t bravery. It was fear. Fear that if he gave in, if he turned against the emperor and his gods, he would be denied his entry back into heaven.

He would never see Valhia again, never feel her presence – as clear and warm as when they’d been alive – surrounding him.

The witch stepped closer. Pressure turned to pain. Hugh felt as if he was burning. He began feeling all of the wounds his corpse had taken. He cried out in twisting, wrenching agony as he fell to his knees and buried his face in the mud.

He heard the witch step closer. Felt her fingers on the top of his head as she grasped it and yanked him up.

Or at least that’s what she intended.

Halfway to being drawn upright, his scalp tore with a sickening rending sound and she was momentarily confused, staring at the clump of hair in her hand and blinking.  Hugh took his opportunity and lifted what remained of his right arm, the jutting bone still sharp and drove it underneath her blackened jaw, feeling it pass through the delicate skin and cleave through the roof of her mouth.  

She gripped his arm and gurgled as blood poured from between her lips, the red light fading from her eyes as she hung impaled on his mangled limb. The barbarians surrounding them wailed, cringing from the unexpected massacring of one of the members of their ruling caste.

Hugh let her body drop and bellowed at the cowed invaders.

“GROOOAAAAABBBHHAAARRRRRRGHHHHHH!”

It made for very strange last words as he rushed at them, but he only had one thing on his mind. Eventually, after he’d killed three of them, they recovered enough to cut his legs off from underneath him and drive spears that pinned him to the ground, but Hugh didn’t care. He was sure that he’d get to see his wife again now.

He closed his eyes and waited to die a second time.