11 Nearing Evil

The Holy Order is a human-only order which is loyal to the church. This order is strong enough to be comparable to a whole nation and it not only boasts incredible military strength but influence and knowledge as well.

A group of knights who belonged to this order were riding their horses through a plain accompanied by a dozen of beast-men in ragged clothes who were tied to the horses. The group seemed to be in a hurry and did not care about the struggling beast-men behind them.

After couple of hours of intense riding the group stopped at a rural village to resupply. One knight could be seen barely holding onto the reigns that were covered in blood.

"Shit, we need to change his bandages." A nearby knight scowled at the bleeding comrade.

They just razed a demi-human village and took a lot of them as prisoners, but their comrade got injured after one of the heathens stabbed him in the back.

The group hurriedly placed the man on the ground and started looking after his wounds not having noticed the weird atmosphere of the village they were in.

The village looked normal from afar. It was small, barely had a dozen of buildings and didn't even have a fence to fend off wild animals.

The pigs squealed as usual…but the lack of life was still evident. When the Holy Order comes to a village or town they are usually met by a dozen of people, whether they want to or not.

No one was forced to greet the Order, but after a small village, just like this, was accused of heresy and, therefore everyone, children included, got hanged… From that day every village, not wanting to get falsely accused of heresy, meets the Order with open hands….

After taking care of their friend the knights looked around.

"Heretics! Have you no soul?! A man, from the Holy Order, is dying by your door step and no one even tries to help! I'll hang you myself if you don't show yourselves!" One of the knights shouted his lungs out and waved his arms like a clown whilst others nodded in approval.

After a moment the knights noticed movement in one of the houses. They shared a few nods and two of them approached the house.

The few shouted again something about burning them at the stake, before kicking the door of a small hut down. They walked inside and started searching for people.

Meanwhile, the rest of the group sat and drank water from their pouches.

"Sir, one of the prisoners stopped moving." A younger, less armored, knight spoke up.

"Hang it." The oldest of knights said as he ignited something that resembled a pipe.

The knight nodded and walked towards the beast-men group while wondering why he has to be the one to do it.

The group of beast-men looked exhausted. They wore no shoes and only had tattered clothing, some of the children had bloodied feet and sobbed.

The knight's name was Arin and…he never wanted to become a knight.

He used to be a villager, but the holy order took him away from his family, the reason for that was his inborn talent. He was born with the affinity to light magic…and had a talent for divine magic.

Being born with a talent was common, but very few of them were useful. Having a talent to predict tomorrow's weather or telling the exact temperature of boiling water was almost always useless.

As Arin barely remembered his mother's crying and begging face before he was taken, he reached the laying beast-man. It was a female, probably. A cat woman, probably… He really didn't know, since her ears were cut off ages ago.

She didn't move even after he poked at her with a stick so he untied her and started tying the rope to a nearby tree. As he was about to finish, crashing sounds could be heard from a distant house.

All of the knights got surprised and took up their weapons.

After a minute of silence a few silhouettes can be seen. The knights sighed in relief after noticing their comrades…but not for long.

Their comrades were limping, and after they approached the group noticed that one of them was missing an eye.

"Undead!" the old knight shouted as he stabbed straight through the head of a Zombie Knight with his mythril sword.

After a few more shouts and clashes of metal, their old comrades laid dead, this time seriously dead, on the ground.

"How on earth?! They were alive just a moment ago!"

Some of the knights held onto their heads, while others poured holy water on the corpses.

"We need to examine the houses fast! Undead never spawn this fast naturally, so it's most likely a necromancer at work!"

"Ughh, those bastards! How can someone desecrate life so much! We need to kill him fast!"

The knights shouted in anger and readied to hunt the necromancer down, even if they had to burn the whole village to the ground.

Arin didn't care even for a second about his lost allies or the necromancer business. The Holy Order always fights evil beings and this is not the first necromancer they met.

He got on with his work and after a few struggles hanged the dead beast-man. There was a slight crunch, but since she was already dead, there was nothing to look at.

Arin turned around to walk back and inform the older knight of his success, but as he was about to do that, the hanging beast-man moved. It reached out from behind him and using it's long claws grabbed his unguarded face.

He wailed in agony as the claws ripped off flesh and dug deeper and deeper into his eye sockets.

"H-Heeelllpp mee!!!"

"Oh shit!"

"More undead?!"

"Help him!"

"Go, idiots!"

The knights ran with their full strength, but it was too late. The undead cat woman's fingers reached Arin's brain and he died.

The undead cat woman flailed on the tree when even more, hundreds upon hundreds of moans resounded throughout the village.

When the group stopped stabbing the hanging undead and finally noticed their surroundings it was too late.

A whole army of undead walked out of the houses and rushed towards the living beings, behind them all followed the incarnation of death itself…

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

"Have you heard?"

"What?"

"The Holy Order came back recently. Apparently they got ambushed or something and had to use the captives in place for shields."

"Seriously?! Is it the devils attacking?"

"Nah, I don't think so. If the devils attacked we'd be dead already. It's probably undead or something even worse, since they're keeping it a secret from the public."

"Then how do you know about it?"

"Well ya see, I was waiting for an inspection by the gate at the time, when the Order came…well, only one of them. It was an old dude without an eye, it looked recent too! It was pretty nasty looking, even now it makes me shudder!"

As the pair of drunken men laughed and discussed what kind of wenches they'll get after this, a party of adventurers sat by one of the tables discussing something excitedly. The group was called 'Whistling Wind' and it was a C ranked party.

"Tine! We have to take this quest, we're almost broke!"

Tine, the magician of the party, wore a pitch black robe and covered most of her face, though her different colored eyes could still be seen.

"Shut up, dumbass. Have you any idea what kind of quest you wish to take?!"

"It's fine, it's fine! One gold coin per head, can you imagine! We can also loot anything we find, it's way better than hunting Trolls or Goblins!!!"

Tine sighed and looked to her right. An old man with a scared face sat there. He was a famous mercenary back in the day, but after his party got wiped he quit. His name was Lee and he was a magic swordsman. It was very hard, probably impossible, to master both magic and swordsmanship to perfection, so he could be called a jack of all trades.

"Hooo~~…so hunting people, Elves, is better according to you? Sure, it might pay more, and as a former mercenary I probably have no rights to say this, but they are people and have families, just like us…not to mention that fighting a person can be even more dangerous than fighting a Troll one on one…"

"Oh, come on! Sure it's hard, but that's why we have you, old man! They are the enemy of our nation, and I've heard rumors of the elven warriors wearing better equipment than even us, adventurers, can ever wish to afford! Think of the possibilities!"

"Don't call me old. I'm perfectly fine just so you know. Also, the Elves having better equipment don't make them sound easier to fight in the least. I've always known you were naïve Elli, but I never thought it was to this extent."

Elli looked like a normal, innocent girl. Some might think of her as nothing more than a villager. She had no impressive equipment or weapons. But she actually had noble blood in her. Her family was long dead and she needed money, fast.

When she heard the old man's answer she pouted in response and spoke up.

"I am the leader. Leader's words are law. We're taking this quest whether you want to or not. If you pussy out consider yourself not part of this party anymore."

Other party members, who kept their mouths shut, sighed from the bottom of their hearts and ordered more food and drinks than usual. The 'leader' pays the bill after all.

With this, and some more drunk rambling, the third meeting of Whistling Wind ended.