“There must be at least five thousand of them,” Andre said. “They’ll overrun Highgate in hours.”
“Worse, they’ll kill everyone and grow their army. If Highgate falls, this army will be twice the size it is now. They’ll be able to massacre anything in their way.”
“What do we do?”
“We get to Highgate as fast as we can. The longer they have to prepare, the better chance they have of survival.”
“Survival? Against this?”
“They need to evacuate the city. Force march the people away from danger. It’s their only hope. We’ve got to give them as much time as we can. No sleep.”

Andre nodded grimly and got to his feet. We started to run, our footsteps drowned out by the noise of a thousand voices. They had no qualms about being caught unaware, for what would an army this size have to fear?

We ran as fast as we could for as long as we had breath. The moons were high in the sky, riding to the west. I guessed that it was midnight when we slowed to a walk. We were finally around the army, but not yet to their vanguard. Zombies were moving in the forest, gathering wood for the fires. We stopped when we heard voices.

“This better be worth it,” one gruffly said. “Almost two weeks of forced marches and we barely have enough booty to buy a new pair o’ boots.”
“Highgate will have something, don’t you worry. And the dead don’t need treasure. All the more for us.”
“Yeah, if we survive. I don’t like the idea of wandering around as one of them for the rest of eternity.”
“Then don’t die, idiot.”

They both laughed and moved toward us, picking up sticks and branches. I looked at Andre and he nodded to me. He drew steel as I focused on manifesting Strxick. As silently as we could, we moved forward until there was nothing but a single stand of trees between us. Strxick appeared next to me in a sudden blaze of fire just as Andre moved in to face the two creatures. In the firelight, we could see that they were two very surprised Orcs.

One fell before it had a chance to move. Strxick moved in to fight the other. Dropping the branches, the Orc drew his sword and swung at Strxick, panic on his face as he swung wide. Andre impaled him from behind and gently let the body slide to the ground.

“What did you need me for?” Strxick said. “I was about to have supper.”
“I’ll let you go back to it,” I whispered. “We didn’t know how difficult they would be.”
“I was just kidding,” Strxick whispered back. I don’t need to eat. Silly man.”

Andre stood, his face in horror. I blinked at him and turned to see three zombies shambling our way.

“Looks like we will need you after all, old friend,” I said.
“We need to get out of here,” Andre said behind me.
“What? Why? We’ve taken three zombies at a time before.”
“We need to leave. Now,” Andre responded.
Strxick and I fell back.
“Do you see more of them? Where should we go?”
“North,” he said.
“That is north,” I said. “What in blazes is wrong with you.”
“That’s my sister.”

One of the zombies was a woman with a gaping hole in her chest. She had clearly seen us and was moving in to attack.

“We need to go,” Andre insisted again. “I’m not going to kill my sister.”
“She’s dead, Andre. This isn’t killing your sister. This is releasing her from eternal bondage. This is setting her soul free.”

I had no idea if zombies or other undead trapped the souls of their former selves or not. But anything we could do, no matter how trivial, to weaken this army was a future advantage to us. Andre stood, his face white in the moonlight. The zombies were almost upon us when I struck two with lightning while Strxick slashed Andre’s sister.

“Stop!” he shouted. “NO!”

He drew his sword and with a single stroke cut his sister’s body in half. He then stepped forward and cut down another one. The third zombie just kept coming, trying to punch Strxick, who dodged out of the way. I pummeled it was rubble as Strxick slashed it. Andre, tears streaming down his face slashed it twice, the last stroke taking its head off. He then went back to his sister’s body, cradling it for a moment, anguish tearing his face apart.

“We could try to bury her,” I said.
“No time,” he replied. “Let’s get moving before I have to kill someone else I know.”

We jogged on through the next day and into the next night before we reached Highgate. We could barely stand for our exhaustion when we got to the outer palisade and finally to a gate house.

“State your business,” said the guard on duty.
“There’s an army coming,” I said. “It destroyed our village and is coming our way. It’s one, maybe two days out.”
“Uh, huh. Well, we got drinks enough for everyone. Sounds like you’ve already had two or three too many.”
“What? No, we haven’t been drinking, we’ve been running for the better part of a week to warn you.”
“Sure, sure. Why don’t you come in and sleep it off.”

He unbarred and opened the door, which looked as if it would hold back the zombie hoard for all of a minute or two.

“You’ve got to warn the knights and the guard. They’re coming.”
“You go ahead and do that, then. I’m not allowed to leave my post.”

I stared at him, incredulous. He was honestly going to go back to his watch.

“Where is the nearest garrison house?”
“Northwest of here. Follow that road four blocks, turn right, three blocks up.”

I took off at a jog, my muscles cramping from the effort. We slammed our way into the garrison house and up to the first guard we saw, who was standing behind a desk.

“We need to evacuate the city,” I said, trying to catch my breath. “There’s an army of undead coming.”
“Undead you say. Did you see them with your own eyes?” the man said, sitting down, then standing up and away from us.
“Yes. They destroyed our village and are coming this way.”
“I see,” he said, looking us up and down. “Why don’t you come back in the morning when you’ve slept some of this off?”
“We haven’t been drinking,” I said.
“This isn’t a joke,” Andre added. “We’ve got the wounds to prove it.”
“Look, we get people in here every week telling us about some disaster or another. Yours is the second army this week. The other one was an Orc invasion.”
“They might have been reporting the same thing. They have orc mercenaries with them.”
“They sobered up and told us the next day that they had dreamed the whole thing. Look. Come back in the morning when you’ve slept this off. Then tell me what the problem is.”
“You have got listen to us,” I started.
“And we will. In the morning.”
“Come on,” Andre said. “Let’s see if the Lord’s men will listen.”
“That’ll be the castle. North of here,” the guard said. “You can’t miss it.”

As we were leaving, we heard him say something about the smell of us. Once we were outside, I took stock. We were a sorry pair. Neither of us had bathed or shaved since the attack. We hadn’t slept in days and hadn’t slept well in more than a week. As we were walking, Andre swayed a little bit. No wonder they thought we were drunk. It didn’t matter. Every hour was vital. We pressed on as fast as our weary legs would take us to the castle.

“Hold,” the guard said. “No one is allowed in the castle over night.”
“We have important news for the Lord. Our village was attacked and destroyed. The army that did it is on its way here. We have to evacuate the city.”
“An army,” he said, dubious. “Do you have any proof of this army?”
“We have the battle wounds and scars, if that will convince you,” Andre said. “We’re trying to help, here.”
“Look, my friends,” the guard said. “We have a lot of people who claim that there’s something bad coming to the city. Turns out to be raiders, bandits, or the odd pocket of ghouls.”
“But there are thousands of them. Look, out to the west. You can probably see their fires.”

We looked but saw nothing. There was a faint glow, but not enough to even convince me of its existence.

“We have some really good inns in town,” the guard said. “Why don’t you sleep whatever it is you took off and go talk to the guards tomorrow.”
“Send scouts,” I said. “They are using the main road. There’s no way to miss an army that big. Please. Do something.”
“Be off,” the guard grumbled. “Don’t make me arrest you for being drunk in public. Go on, now.”

Andre pulled me away before I started arguing again. We went to the Whale and Grouse Inn and got a room. My body was begging to sleep when I lay down on the bed, but my mind wasn’t in the mood to listen. Could they truly have so many people complaining about invading armies that this was some sort of banality? What the blazes was going on, here?

I fell into oblivion, dreaming of burning flesh, screams, and dead, unfeeling eyes.