Legacy

The Siege

Glacierford

The wind blows, calmly yet eerily, towards the small, fortified city of Glacierford. The shuffle of footsteps can be heard from the mines, where laborers and convicts hacked away at the stone for minimum wage. 

Outside of the mines, dozens work outside in the fields, harvesting whatever they can from this forsaken tundra. Others clean the horses, and an unlucky few are forced feed the pigs. 

Blacksmiths sweat over steaming furnaces, the intense heat requiring them to wear iron masks as to not quite literally melt their face off. Swords are loaded in crates headed towards the Dreadfort, the Frostbourne Kingdom's royal training center.

Huntsmen, deep in the woods, hide themselves amongst the bushes as to not be seen by their prey. They place traps in order to catch the animals easier, but then the hard part comes - killing them. 

Glacierford's guards patrol around the village in small squads, checking up on the mines and grand fields of the town, and occasionally going back inside for a hot drink or their breaks.

Rain, the village chieftain, watches from the small tower in the middle of the village. Everything is so quiet... Too quiet. His eyes narrow, looking for the slightest sign of a hostile warrior or the undead army.

His partner, Abigail, interrupts the silence, almost startling Rain in the transition. "What's going on? Why are you so on edge?" Abigail says gently, seeing Rain slightly jump. He sighs, and turns around. "Usually everything isn't this quiet... I feel something is coming. Something big." She stares at him, unsure. She speaks up. "Maybe it's just the peace. Maybe the undead simply gave up." He turns around once more. "The undead doesn't simply 'give up'. They are walking corpses, only loyal to their master. They don't know how to 'give up'." He turns to face the mines, uneasy all over. 

Nothing makes sense. Why would the undead cease to attack them? He knew good and well that they didn't even know how to surrender. That was one of the most dangerous things about them. He stared at the snow-tipped forests, pondering.

Abigail sighs, and leans back into her chair. She walks over and pulls a thick-looking book off of the bookshelf. She slightly shivers, mainly because of the freezing temperatures of Glacierford but also in part of what Rain had said. Was something wrong? Or was he just being paranoid?

Rain continued to stare. He was tearing himself apart with questions. He was afraid that he may be right. The village was far from equipped to deal with the sieges other towns, cities, and villages had gone through. Hell, most of their guardsmen were townspeople. He was trying to convince himself he was just being paranoid. But he couldn't. Deep down, he knew the truth.

The Mines

As the miners hack away at the stone surface, trying to uncover precious minerals, they begin to hear a light shuffle of footsteps not quite human from one of the fronts. The miners stare at each other, confused. Maybe another village's miners had accidentally gone too far and tunneled in here. But there wasn't another village for dozens of miles... The pickaxes get louder. No voices. Just groans. The clatter of bones become audible, and it hits the miners - This isn't another village, this was an undead raid. They begin to run and scream, shouting to be raised back up via the single wooden elevator propelled by the engineers at the top. But they can't be heard. They are too far down. A blunt and dirty silver pickax breaks through. It makes a hole. More pickaxes begin to break through, and the miners begin shouting, begging to be raised up.

A green hand begins clawing at the mere dirt separating them from the miners. The miners scream, horrified, terrified. A face becomes visible - They are pushing one through. The miners begin whacking it, stabbing it, hitting it, doing whatever it takes to keep it on the other side. They hear a hiss, and the wall blows open in an instant. The miners are thrown off, and the undead flood the platform. Screams echo, and the crew at the top of the shaft finally notices the shouts, the begging, the moans. They activate the elevator by instinct, hopefully pulling up the crew... What they find is far worse. Moans can be heard getting closer. It's not until the foreman notices the quietness that it hits him - The miners are dead. He orders the engineers to cut the elevator loose, buts it's too late. They've made the discovery themselves.