Sharp

I observed the dead man carefully. He hadn’t seen me perched on top of the fence. Had I been drugged? Was this an illusion? If it is a hallucination, it stinks something awful. He reeked of death and decay.

Should I go back to the company? This was an ordinary man. He may have had one or two essences like me, but he was not iron rank. He still had not seen me, and I was out in the open, in full view. That tells me his perception is impaired.

What would it take to kill him? Kill him again, I suppose it is. How is he walking? Is there a necromancer around? I thought they were just stories to scare us kids. There is supposedly a God of Undeath. If the stories are true, Undeath is the sworn enemy of the goddess of Death. She wants people to stay dead. Who knows? Not me. I have only heard stories that are not reliable.

This is definitely something from a nightmare, though.

Then a dead woman turned the corner where the man came from. She had a wooden chair leg sticking out of her stomach. She wasn’t bleeding, though. There was blood on her dress, so she had bled. She had the same jerky movement as the man and the dead eyes. It was the smell that identified them the most to me.

The man was close to me now, and he finally saw me. He turned and sped up to a stumbling run towards me and reached out with his hand to grab me. He didn’t have any weapons, so I guess he was going to use his hands and teeth. He was a human, so he didn’t have any claws, and he only had blunt teeth.

I only had a small knife on me. I need to get to Jeb’s place and grab my gear. I also had no idea how to kill these things. They were already dead.

Careful and Watchful are the keywords, so I jumped over him and ran to the building across the road. I used my claws to scale up the side and onto the two-story roof. I looked back down, and the woman, who I now saw was an elf, had joined the man. They were at the base of the building, trying to climb up to get me. They were failing.

I need to find out what is going on. I need my gear, and I probably need to get Jeb. Then we both need to get out of here.

I move across the roof to look around and see how widespread this is. The house I am in is in a block of four that have shared walls. There is a gap for a walkway, followed by another block of four. There are more undead in the back alley between buildings.

I take a running leap to clear the alley easily and use my Hunter’s Step to land lightly on the next roof. A major road is at the end of this block, and I approach it quietly. I can hear the sound of fighting.

I approached the edge of the roof carefully and crouched down so I was not seen. Then I decided that was not enough, and I lay on my stomach, crawled to the edge and looked up and down the street.

The undead were not wandering aimlessly here; they were moving together and attacking a group of people led by a couple who looked like iron rankers. The undead did not have weapons. One Iron Ranker had a sword and shield, and the other a sword and knife. The civilians had whatever they could get their hands on, and some were trying to build a barricade from furniture.

The sword and shield lady was doing her best to keep them back by clever use of the shield, but the press of undead was getting heavier. Her sword and the sword and knife guy did not seem very effective. They would cut into the throng, and nothing would change. I saw the sword pierce an eye, and into the brain, and still, the undead kept coming. How do you kill them? Re-kill them.

As the undead pushed the civilians back, I saw two undead on the ground, so it was possible to kill them. Wait, no, they weren’t dead; they had just had their legs cut out from them, but they were still trying to crawl forward to the fight. How do you kill them? Where did they come from?

Then I saw a man in dark leather moving fast to the fight. He had dual knives, and he struck hard and fast and killed the sword and shield Iron-ranker in the first hit. He then engaged the other iron-ranker and obviously out classed him. He must be at least a bronze rank. The undead ignored him and overran the civilians, clawing and biting. The other defender was soon dead, and the man in dark leather went around killing the civilians. Once a civilian was dead, the undead lost interest in them.

Once they were all dead, the undead started wandering aimlessly again, still ignoring the man in dark leather. The man squatted down and cleaned his knives, then got out a whetstone and sharpened one of them.

About five minutes later, the bodies of the civilians that had been killed started twitching, and then they started getting up. Still, the man waited, and the new undead joined the others in wandering around.

It was about ten minutes later, the iron rankers' bodies started twitching, and then the first one got up. This was what the man had been waiting for, and he directed the female to pick up her shield and sword and the male to pick up his sword and knife. These two moved much more smoothly than the civilians and were obviously familiar with using the weapons.

The man then set off down the road, the two iron-rank undead following. He left all the civilian undead just wandering aimlessly.

This man was obviously in control of the undead—a necromancer or a priest of the undead god or something. Were there more of them? I would assume so, or the guard would have taken them out before now.

Oh, heidel tits! If the iron-rank undead are so good, what about the bronze rank and higher? I really need to get out of here. I also need a weapon. I don’t know how to kill them, but I need something better than my claws.

I look down, and below me is a balcony. I slip over the edge of the roof and drop down using my Hunter Step to keep it quiet. I use my sharp claws on the lock and enter the house. I am in a bedroom, so I move to the stairs. I don’t see any weapons. The kitchen has some bigger knives than the small one I stole from Harold, so I grab two. Jeb was right. There are knives everywhere.

I moved to the back door and spied a wood pile there. I looked around and saw a few undead people around. I kept low and slipped into the overhang. I saw what I was looking for. There was a two-handed wood axe and a small hand axe. Axes are also common.

I slipped the hand axe into my belt and carried the larger axe. I sharpened the chopping edge. I could use the back of the axe to break bones and smash heads. I might not know how to re-kill them, but I know how to slow them down. They still need limbs.

Careful and Watchful. I kept low and moved around the edge of the house to the street. I needed to get to Jebs, and that was in the central business area. The lumber yard was near the edge of the city near one of the gates. Maybe I should just make a run for it and get away from the city. No, I need to check on Jeb and get my gear. I came back to the street where I had been watching. There were a lot more undead on it than before. I needed to cross it and then keep going. Avoiding the streets seemed like a good idea, and using the roofs where I could was the plan.

I don’t know the perception range of these things. Did the first man not see me until I was close? Was that because of how far he could see or because I was not moving? My eyes pick up movement better than before.

I picked a moment when most of the undead were not looking my way, and I used Hunter Step to dash across the street and into an alley. Three undead saw me and reacted, coming after me in a shambling run.

I realised the alley was too narrow to use the axe. That was a mistake. I had only been thinking they could come at me one at a time. I couldn’t climb the buildings without dropping the axe as I had not worked out a way to attach it to my belts.

I kept running to the end of the alley. I didn’t bother with my hunters Step as I was faster than them anyway, and this was going to be a marathon. Running out of mana would get me killed. Not for the first time did I wish my Recovery Attribute had gone to Iron rather than my Spirit.

At the end of the alley, I could keep running and see how long I took to lose them, or I could cripple these ones and then go slow and careful. The last thing I wanted was to run into a big bunch of them.

At the end of the alley, the footpath continued, with backyards on each side. Further down, I saw two undead, so I stopped and faced the woman coming towards me. I need to stop thinking of them as people, or I will go mad. They are just undead.

I ducked under the reach of the undead and swung my axe at her leg. The sharpened axe went straight through, and she collapsed to the side. I wasn’t used to the axe and was off balance when it went through the leg. Hence, I was not prepared for the next undead. Fortunately for me, their coordination was not good, and it tripped over the fallen girl, so I brought the axe down on its head, splitting the skull in two and exposing the brain.

The third was following the second, so I punched the end of the axe into its face, rocking it back, and then brought the axe down on its shoulder, getting halfway into its body before it stopped. Unfortunately, the axe was caught on the ribcage, and I couldn’t free it quickly, so I let it go and stepped back out of range.

None of them were dead, not even the one with its brain spilling out of its head. I pulled out the hand axe. I did need to know how to re-kill these things. The first Undead was trying to drag itself toward me with its hands. Its one good leg was stuck under number two.

I stomped my foot on one arm, letting my claws sink in, and I brought the small axe down on its head, exposing its brain. Then I changed direction and brought it down on its neck, severing the head right off. It still didn’t die. I had to step back as number three was coming at me.

I grabbed the axe handle stuck in the torso of the third one. I swung it around, so he went sideways. Then, I swung at his exposed neck with the hand axe. I didn’t get a clean shot, and it took two goes to get his head off. He collapsed dead. What was the difference?

Number two was getting to his feet with his brain spilling down his back, so I pushed him off his feet again and levered the large axe out of the dead one, putting the small axe in a belt. Taking the head off is only half the job. The dead one had the axe in his torso. Did I get his heart? Is it head and heart?

I brought the big axe down on her back where I thought her heart was. She collapsed dead. That left number two, and I jumped him again and put the axe through the ribs and into the heart. He stopped moving as well. I don’t have to remove the head. Just destroy or detach the brain and do the same with the heart.

I leaned on the axe, panting from the effort. Why couldn’t I have bonded the Power and Recovery attributes rather than the Speed and Spirit? I don’t know.

Then I was bowled to the ground, with one of the undead on top of me. I had forgotten about the two further up the alley. I caught a glimpse of the second a few meters back coming as well.

Claw and teeth, although I refused to use my teeth on these things. I ripped my sharpened claws through the flesh and used a move that spun us so I was on top. I then jammed my claws into the eyes, going for the brain, and then did the same for the heart.

I rolled off the one on the ground, not checking if it was dead and got ready for the next, drawing the hand axe. My situational awareness needs work, or it will get me killed. I have the perception for it, and I need to pay attention to my senses.

The last Undead was easy. Now I knew what I was doing. I ducked under its grasping arms and tripped it to the ground. I put the hand axe through its chest, grabbed one of the kitchen knives and put it through its eye. It lay still.

I checked my surroundings. All clear.

I decided the big axe was too cumbersome, and it was better to move fast and light. I left it and used my claws to climb the nearest house, lay on the roof, and rested for a bit.

I thought about the fight. There were some obvious failings on my part. My lack of ability with the weapons was one. My lack of situational awareness was another.

I looked at my hands. They were covered in rotting innards and brain matter. Would I turn undead from this? I hadn’t thought about that. I thought about the man in dark leather. He had killed the civilians before they turned undead. I figured I would be fine if I didn’t die. Yeah, that was a weird sentence.

Don’t die, and therefore, you won’t become undead. Probably.

Those were normal civilians. There are iron and probably bronze undead around and people who control them. I imagine the silver rankers got away, as they are powerful. I am not discounting the existence of silver rankers amongst the undead hierarchy. I hope there were no gold rankers.

Right. Careful and watchful, and don’t die.