Prologue

They say the night owls hoot of bad omen but this did not bother two lads in the middle of the woods riding a carriage. Their faces beaded with sweat in the cold night, their selves exasperated and severed by shivers running down their spines.All that kept them going was that the nightmare they had started was coming to an end. Be it the cold night, the long journey, the risk and the goddamn owls, they would never give up! Not having came this far.

CREEEK!

The wheels creeked to a halt and the men hurriedly but hesitantly alighted. They hastily dragged a sack from the back of the carriage and diverted from the main road and into the depths of the woods.

After treading for some time the one leading halted and finally broke the silence,

"Here."

They had stopped at a small clearing, a perfect place for the final part of their nightmare.

The former then opened the sack and the body aside while the latter took a spade and shoveled the earth. He dug a sizeable grave and faced the former. They both then stared at the dead body for some time as if contemplating on what to do next.

The body was that of a blond bearded man around his late fifties. He had large tufts of hair on his head and even larger on his face. Yet the beard was twirled at the ends making him look like a viking.

The former lad kneeled to the ground and placed his hand on the dead's face closing his eyes. He then mouthed to the ear, "Am sorry."

They then looked at each other and nodded. It was time.

They lifted the body and gently hurled it to the grave. It was then they felt a tremor that coursed through their selves. The dread keeled them to the ground, trembling and heaving like strangled pigs.

The tremor again befell, this time with a thunderous clap that almost broke their eyes. And there before them was a purple smoke wafting ominously in the air. The smoke seemed to grow and the men could see inside of it, sort of.

It was a purple space of rippling energy sending pulses out. Each surge of power was responded with a quake of the earth.

Out of the space a figure appeared, at a glance it seemed like a hooded human but it was far more terrifying. For its skin was rotten slimy flesh with a pair of yellow slits for eyes. It wore black robes covered in wavering purple aura that synchronized with the space.

The creature shifted its gaze to the space and mouthed in an indistinct tongue. Another figure appeared only that this was not humanoid at all. It resembled a hound but ten times larger with twice as long claws. It's skin too was that of rotten slimy flesh which oozed with purplish aura. Its face had only two faces, two yellow slits for eyes and a mouth crawling with several teeth.

The humanoid creature then turned its gaze to the dead body and slowly walked towards it. It coached and spread its arms over the body. The yellow slits flashed red as the purple aura seeped into the dead body. Suddenly his eyes opened shining a purple glint and he rose up.

The humanoid creature looked at the two lads still under the tremor and mouthed a command to the living dead, this time in human language.

"kill them all..."