The Battle for the Capital

The former brigand was running through the streets of the ruined city, he knew the area well, and had no trouble orientating himself on the terrain. Dick could have caught up with him using his acceleration, but as an experienced soldier he didn't, because he could use it in battle, and he didn't have the strength to maintain his aura all the time.

Destroyed houses were left behind, street by street, block by block, the place he had lived in for years was destroyed. And even though Dick had long ago had to leave this city, his heart was seething with anger.

"You bastards. I'm gonna get you."

Running past another abandoned barricade, literally littered with bodies, the man stopped, 'where the fuck do I go?'

Initially he wanted to follow his 'employer', but after thinking about it again, he decided to abandon the idea, and really, if there was something at the gate that Bondrewd couldn't handle, he had no business being there, the man was catching his breath and plotting his future route, but his plans were thwarted by another scream, only unlike hundreds of other voices, this one was familiar to him. The bald bandit without a shadow of a doubt turned 180 degrees and rushed in his direction through the besieged city.

...

It was not easy for the king to rise to his feet, his mouth was oozing blood, his ribs, at least most of them, were broken, and his artifact armour, the pride of his family, now looked more like a pot that had seen a lot, but in spite of all this Avitus stood up proudly, at full height as a king should, and with a leisurely gait, not because he did not want to hurry, but because of the terrible pain, he approached the strange knight.

He was visibly different from all the warriors the king had encountered before, his armour was black as pitch, peeping through a good cloak of the same colour, the stranger's helmet was angular and glowed violet, the king was sure that those violet rays were emitted by this very artefact.

A slight smile played on the king's face, 'maybe this is the help the unknown patron promised him', before the king could turn to the black knight, he was ahead of him.

"I'll take it from here." The stranger said shortly and walked briskly towards the smoking reptile. Avitus mentally wished the unknown man good luck, praying to all the gods he knew, turned towards the phalanx, the guardsmen were killing the remnants of the dead and a couple of them were already striving for the king, taking him under their arms they dragged the wounded monarch to the rear.

"Do not let us down unknown, and believe me you will not regret your decision to come here!" The king shouted one last time and leaning on the massive figures of the guardsmen dragged himself to the rear of the formation.....

 ...

Dick rushed at the shout, making his way through the familiar old streets, he came to the courtyard of a small house. A crowd of zombies tried unsuccessfully to force their way inside, but something, or rather someone prevented them from doing so, in a large carved doorway, skilfully decorated with golden oak. There stood a man of no longer young appearance, dressed in an elegant beige camisole, his wrinkled face was stained with blood, and his sparse grey hair was twisted into ugly blood-grey clumps, in his hands he was clutching a poker, or rather waving it around like a madman, swearing like a cobbler.

"Who's next, you bloody devils?" shouted an elderly man, breaking the head of another walking corpse.

Dick knew the man too well for his own good, and with a squeak of his heart he drew his blade and silently approached the attackers. The last zombie was too late to feel the threat, and a swinging blow from Dick's two-handed sword put him and his two companions to rest. The crowd instinctively felt threatened and turned their attention to the bald warrior, individually they were no match for him, but their strength was in numbers, and even without external control they realised this seemingly on an instinctive level.

Dick manoeuvred skilfully across the courtyard, not allowing himself to be pinched, and making accurate counterstrikes, the man always aiming for the head, and the number of opponents gradually decreased, and in the end there were only three of them left. All shrouded in heavy armour, massive figures with formerly good but rusty weapons.

"And you will have to dance a little longer."

The warrior with the halberd rushed forward, making inhuman sounds mixed with unintelligible mutterings; the second followed, waving a morgeshtern; the third seemed to have retained the largest share of reason, and went round to the bandit through the ornamental bushes. The halberd struck the void, but Dick had no time to counterattack; from behind the back of the first, the second dead man struck with a morgeshtern, the rusty chain strained and jingled, carrying a massive iron cylinder, Dick barely had time to bounce back, the projectile passing within an inch of his face, cutting the air with a characteristic light whistle.

Dick did not want to use his trump card, and gradually retreated back, after all, the zombies were still themselves, survivable and incredibly slow. So Dick could safely stalk away. The man thought about how to separate the two, there was no desire to approach them both, because they were clad in armour, and to cut off their heads was not a trivial task, the third dead man fell out of the bushes behind Dick, his rusty chain mail rattled with every movement and the effect of surprise could be forgotten.

Without a second thought the bandit rushed at him. Dick fell to his knees, missing the blow above him, and then slid on his knees behind the zombie's back. The man stood up sharply grabbed his opponent by the collar and threw him over himself directly at his approaching colleagues, the body collapsed on the couple, throwing them off balance and to the ground. Not being in favour of the idea that you don't hit people lying down, Dick trotted over to the fluttering zombies and blew the heads off all three of them.

Wiping sweat from his face the man looked around, the whole yard was covered with bodies, the defenders of the house among them were few, carefully running through all of them Dick did not find the desired, and his heart was slightly relieved.

"What are you doing here, Dick?" The question was voiced by the old man with the poker with such an intonation as if it was not Dick who had saved him, but he had saved him.

"I just came to see you get eaten by your own borrowers, but I guess it wasn't to be today." The bandit's eyes glistened slightly, and he was journalling with a special pleasure.

The expression of his interlocutor's face changed, and his features softened.

"You know it's been a long time since then."

"I remember everything, down to the last moment."

The shutters on the beautiful wooden windows rattled, and soon they swung open, and a pretty brunette girl, with a pretty face, looked out of the window.

"Dick!"

"Linda!"

 These two had much to discuss, but unfortunately the moment was not at hand.

"Close the window and hide inside!" shouted the grey-haired man.

"But father, there's no one else around, and....." before she could finish, she was interrupted by Dick.

"Do as he says, I'm not going anywhere without you." Said Dick, with a broad smile, and a look of joy came over the girl's face, and she slammed the window shut.

"You yourself know why I refused you, it was the best decision, first of all for her." The man finished, leaned against the doorjamb, took out a wooden pipe from his pocket and lit a cigarette.

"The best solution for your pocket, speak properly and don't pretend to care about Linda. We both know the truth, what is there to say, between a simple centurion and a whole nobleman, the choice is obvious. Except where's that fucking pompous cock now? And Ritor?"

"It was more complicated than you think, but that's not the point, what are you going to do?"

"I... I" Before Dick could finish his sentence, he was struck by a chill, a deadly chill, and more instinctively than consciously he drew his sword and turned round to block the blow. The knight was looking at him, his helmet was in the shape of a human skull with a black hood over it, his opponent's body was hidden by a cloak.

"Who the fuck are you?"

The unknown man retreated as suddenly as he had struck, keeping at a distance of ten paces he just looked at Dick and did not take any action. It was only now that the bandit realised what had made him shake, and a chill ran down his spine.

There was absolutely no one in the helmet.

...

Bondrewd came close to the smoking dragon, it looked not important, first of all the absence of the right paw and half of the jaw, the rest of the body was like a freshly chopped salad. Bondrewd was about to finish, but to his surprise the dragon addressed him, and though only one of the three words could be clearly recognised, the general meaning was clear.

"Stop, why would someone like you help these lowlifes, I don't know who you are, but trust me I can sense people, and we are very similar..." While the dragon was talking, a veritable avalanche of undead continued to line up behind him: zombies, skeletons, marionettes, inferior vampires and ghouls kept coming and coming. But there was no hurry to attack.

"And what can you offer me?" Bondrewd had asked the question purely out of curiosity, and though he didn't care much about the fate of the people of this city, the mission said otherwise.

"A lot of things, power, wealth, knowledge, but most importantly freedom, we are not idiots, and we know very well who sent you here and what your motivation is to save these incompetents." After a while, the necromancer in the body of a lizard continued.

"Why do you think we attacked this miserable country, we need an army, the rulers of the living are weak, petty and untalented, since the time of the Blood Queen they have degenerated almost completely to nothing more than a cockroach with an intelligence like a stone."

"We don't care if the living or the dead fight under our command, someone has to stop the warrior of madness and his patrons, and if the living don't want to do it, we'll make them, for their own good, so what will you choose, join us or protect these lowlifes from the inevitable?"

Bondrewd was faced with an extremely difficult question of choice.