A caste is forged

The pale moonlight danced across the city as the glow of the street lamps bounced from window to window as the fountain in the middle of the city acted as the sun as both the warm orange glow and the cold white hue of the moon battled on the water's surface.

Atop a hill overlooking the entire city stood a castle that towered over everything. Its black stone walls and towers gave it an ominous aura as guards patrolled back and forth atop the walls.

Then, a shout was heard. Some of the citizens within the city woke up from the frantic sound of shouting. A few peeked out their windows to see two boys running down the street sweating heavily that contrasted their almost relieved faces.

"Help! Help!" One of the boys who had a sword by his waist and black hair with white stripes shouted as he called for anyone to help.

"What is it kid?" A guard who approached because of the commotion asked more tired at what was happening rather than annoyed.

"O-Our village was attacked! We ran as fast as we could when the attack started and we weren't able to bring anyone with us..." The boy solemnly looked down as images of the people that died flashed in his head.

The Guard narrowed his eyes and looked at them up and down and noticed their ragged state. He turned around as more guards came over after some of the citizens called the guards.

"Looks like the kids ran away from their village after it was attacked by some bandits. Get some of the guards re-"

"It wasn't bandits!" The boy cut him off

"Then what was it?" The guard looked confused since there wasn't a war going on right now so there was no reason for there to be anything except bandits. And the area of all the villages and towns that were under watch by Briar castle was regularly maintained by mercenaries or adventurers.

"It was undead" The boy said it in a way that he was so sure of it. The guard looked at the other boy who only nodded.

"What did they look like?" Even if they were so sure of it. He still had to ask them since they were still young and probably haven't left their villages apart from the forest around it to be honest.

"We couldn't see them very well since it was dark but we some of the guards having swords stuck into them and moving on with some of them missing limbs. And they just had this stench that...felt wrong. Like it goes wrong with everything that's here."

He was sure of it now. If it were some kid who just read about the undead then anyone could describe what they looked like. But what made him sure of it was the latter part of it. He'd once been sent on a subjugation within the city once when the graveyard had undead start rising out from their graves after the grave-keeper started to skip parts of the procedure prior to burying such as washing the body in holy water.

And what the boy just said was something that he also felt. When he arrived everything felt wrong in a way. The air, their faces, even the sound that they made felt wrong to the core.

"Get the horses! Have two placements of guards ready to move and a wagon for any survivors that we find" He turned to the two "Get in the wagon as soon as it arrives" With that the man walked off.

\-\

Both John and Julius looked at each other and sighed as they watched the guard walk away. 'They survived...' Both of them thought of this at the same time as a smile spread on both of their faces as they both fell to the floor.

'I'm tired. I should be allowed to rest right?' John thought this as he looked at the night sky and the countless stars that shone. A story was passed around when they were kids... younger than they are now at least.

Each star in the sky was a soul that was wandering was either waiting to come back to the world or hated the world enough to never come back. Sometimes he'd just stare at it for hours and think if his parents were there watching him and if they were proud of him or not.

"Hey, don't worry about it. Whatever you're thinking about? Forget it." Julius just smiled beside him.

"Get yer things ready! We're leaving." A different guard shouted at them. They saw the guards gathering up as some of the guards brought horses and a wagon. All of them wore different armour from what they usually wore.

Instead of the plate-iron armour, they had chainmail armour on and a silver short-sword instead of the steel longsword. He just stared at both their armours and weapons questioningly.

One of the nearby guards noticed where he was looking and laughed. "Don't worry. We aren't downplaying your situation or anything. If it really is the undead then there might be higher class undead there or maybe even a necromancer. Not much use to use heavy armour against something that would be able to use magic or something that with a single hit could crush the armour.

So it's better to put on something light and defends against anything that's looking to pierce your armour. And if there is a vampire" He padded his sword on his hip "Then we got silver for that."

John and Julius nodded at the guard's explanation.

"I take it both of you are the kids that sent out the request right?" The same guard that called out to them before came up behind them.

"Y-Yeah" John flinched at his sudden appearance.

"Good. Come on, yer wagon's ready." He nodded behind him and pointed at the wagon. They both followed him in silence and entered the wagon. "It'll take about two hours on horseback to yer village."

He nodded and watched the guards saddle up and did their final checks on their equipment.

"Okay men, we're dealing with undead right now. If any of you are squeamish then I don't give a shit." A round of laughter passed through the guards. "Let's go men!"

The wagon jerked forward as they started moving. The wagon started kicking up dust behind them as they exited the gate and watched the wall around the city get further and further.