Chapter 11a: General Faygen's Return

Part II
Siege

"Who can know the depths of evil, and is there an equally good force to compare it with?"

~Secret Holy Scriptures of the Waken Book

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General Faygen placed his feet on solid ground for the first time in almost two weeks.

During the ten-day sea voyage he had stayed in the hold, staring at the plank ceiling and thinking about the hell his resurrection had become. He had done little else as the ship rocked across the ocean. Once the craft had docked he remained in the hold for two more days listening to workers yell back and forth across the docks, while the five lower undead entered the city to perform their terrible deed. He was glad to have land underneath him once again. He hated the hold, a dark and humid place that swelled the gasses within him, making his innards gurgle and swell.

Thankfully he couldn’t smell the gaseous expulsions or his rotting carcass. The sense of smell hadn’t returned to him with his resurrection, though his other senses seemed to work just fine. The constant itch of larvae rooting beneath his skin made him wish his sense of touch had been removed as well. Occasionally he would catch one as it bore through his flesh, or cough one of the little white buggers up as it tickled the back of his throat. He took his frustrations out on the tiny vermin with a pinch of his fingers.

The rain began almost fourteen hours ago, the screaming started shortly after that, then died down to an occasional screech, breaking the lulling rhythm of the rain. He had ignored the distant cries, concentrating on his mission. He listened to the screams and blocked them out, willing them away. He had enough self-loathing to deal with; he didn’t need the added guilt of more victims he couldn’t help. The screams of men being transformed into his mindless army were more than he could bear.

Twelve days in the hold had given him a lot of time to reflect on his situation, both his first life and this new one. Death had claimed his soul almost a thousand years ago in the glorious battle of Sipha. Outnumbered two to one, the Croshans had still claimed victory, thanks to General Faygen’s military genius. They won, but at a high cost; almost two thirds of his men would never walk away from the battlefield and a sword through the back for himself. He died moments after victory had been proclaimed - a glorious death, a warrior’s death.

Faygens last moments consisted of terrible pain then darkness. Not only the absence of light, but of smell, sound, touch, self …everything. Almost a thousand years of nothing. No glorious warrior’s greeting by Roke, the god of war. No glorious mansion for the great leader of the Croshans. No gold and jewels. No beautiful concubines. No great meeting with long lost relatives and no reconciliation with his daughter. Nothing.

His god granted him a thankless death for years of service and loyalty.

Consciousness. No great swirling lights or a voice from heaven, only self-awareness. A dim thought in the center of his mind, I am. The thought grew into complex ideas, then foggy pieces of memory that fit together to form a puzzle of a man. The puzzle displayed a man with friends, comrades, lovers, and a daughter. A man named Faygen.

He became aware, but darkness still held reign over his vision. No sounds. No smells. No feeling, no pounding of a beating heart to contrast the silence. Even with the panic he felt there was still no heartbeat. Am I still dead?

The pain started as pinpricks in his joints. The stinging grew and multiplied until burning torment flooded his body, focusing where bone met bone. His body twitched and convulsed, grinding joints and increasing the torture. He suddenly realized he could feel, though he wished he couldn’t.

His eyes snapped open, grating his corneas like sandpaper rubbed over a grape. They burned but didn’t moisten. Through fog clouded vision he saw two mummified arms, skin as broken and dry as bark, frantically rising and falling, striking a hard surface. A dim beat came to his ears, wood striking stone. The arm rose for another strike. Through slowly ebbing pain he willed the arm to stop. The appendage stayed in the air, thin fingers outstretched like twigs. He willed them to flex and they twitched, sending fresh tendrils of pain to his throbbing mind. My fingers. My arm. What have I become?

The deep rumble of laughter, low and mirthless, erupted to his right. His hearing hadn’t completely returned, making the laughter sound as though it came through a thick wall. He willed his head to turn. His chin swung an inch to the right before pain knifed down his spine from the base of his skull to the middle of his shoulders. The sound of popping vertebrae crackled like thunder, traveling through his dry flesh directly to his ears. An involuntary gasp escaped his mouth. The attempt to move air through the withered bags of his lungs created a new torture from deep within his chest. Dust filled his throat.

“Hurts, doesn’t it?” the voice whispered with a smoker’s rasp. It was a deep and grating sound, two rocks being rubbed together to create words. A face leered over him, hidden within the shadows of a cowl. Only a wide smile shown, filled with yellowed wolfish teeth.

Fear of creating more anguish for himself stopped Faygen from nodding his head in reply.

The creature seemed to understand. “You awakened sooner than I expected, though I really shouldn’t be surprised. After all, it is the mighty General Faygen that I have brought back from the darkness. I will try and work quicker to make your entry back into the land of the living more accommodating.”

A hand reached from a black sleeve and lay on his forehead, while the other hand reached out to grasp his knee. The hand that grasped Faygen’s forehead was black with rot. Knuckles stood out like the ends of cypress roots, stretching the skin until it looked ready to rip. Hundreds of small boils covered the tendons that tried to protrude from the skin at the wrist, lightening the dark skin stretched over then at the head.

He didn’t want the vile thing touching him.

The foul thing began to chant in a guttural language that Faygen didn’t understand. He tensed as ice filled his veins, running from where the creature touched his forehead to the other hand at his knee. A pain far greater than any he had yet experienced flashed through his body. His back arched and his fingers clenched against the chill. He didn’t notice the aching in his joints; a greater pain had taken its place. The hands stayed on him, holding him down against the torment, until warmth began to melt the ice. Like the ice the warmth began at the hand on his head and flowed down his body, thawing the icy pain and replacing it with warm relief.

The chanting stopped. The diseased hands pulled away from him.

“Feel better now, General?”

When Faygen didn’t turn his head or respond his healer said, “You can look at me now. The pain is gone and your body is restored to its former state.”

He turned his head and faced the thing that had brought him back. It stood hunched over a foot or so away from him, surrounded by walls of stone, a thing hidden beneath tattered robes, face hidden within a deep cowl.

In a low voice the diseased thing said, “I think you should know what has happened since your demise. How the world has changed and how I expect you to help me change it even more.”

Before Faygen could reply the creature mouthed another guttural word and the room suddenly became overlaid with images. Events that had taken place over the past thousand years flashed across a backdrop of stone. Thousands of images, important evens, everything of significance that he had missed while sleeping. Then he saw the future. A future where the his resurrector controlled everything, a future of death, where the undead became ghouls like himself. Some roamed around as mindless things, performing simple tasks or stumbling forward until given instructions. Others were more like himself, with the capability to think, but everyone could be controlled at any time by the horrid creature. A world full of abominations like himself.

He didn’t try and fool himself. He was still dead. No heartbeat, no breathing. He had been made into a ghoul, an abomination in the eyes of the gods.

Next, the creature showed him a city named Renier, a city full of undead waiting for a leader; an army in need of someone who could breach the walls of the castle, piercing the heart of the once beautiful city and claiming it for the necromancer.

He wouldn’t do it!

The toothy smile widened and images of his daughter flooded his mind. Eyliasa! Her body lay on a stone table much like his, but unlike himself, she had been restored to her former beauty. His precious fifteen-year-old daughter.