Pestilence: Rise Of The Pure Undead

The old home rumbled with fury as the father stepped forward, the floor seemed ready to give in at any moment, but it did not.

Supporting the thunderous stomp, the man raised the club high above his head, it made no doubt, this hit would carry every single bit of strength available to him, certain to blow Loimos’s skull apart.

Grabbing the pillow he had just used to snuff the youngest, he chucked it without much force at the man, who completely ignored it and kept on charging forward, he was going to slam this club down no matter what.

Watching the approaching attack coming from above, it was fast, but not fast enough to catch Loimos by surprise, bending his knees, he used his maximum speed and strength to side step at the last moment whilst simultaneously reaching into his coat.

The father’s bloodshot eyes were focused on the club, smashed through floorboards, he wanted to pull it back up and swing again, swing and swing until nothing but paste was left of the abject murderer.

His mouth was filled with blood, a violent sting coming from his nape brought him to his knees, sapping the strength from his arms, he fell limply down, the wrath animating him did not die down, but it was replaced by the coldness of death.

The fear.

Loimos heard the shouts of the mob converging outside as result of the father’s scream, it wouldn’t be long before they began trying to break in.

Seizing the heavy club from himself, he turned his attention to the lantern the man had dropped, it hadn’t been broken by the fall, the flame inside was still swirling and dancing.

Quickly dragging and throwing the corpses in the room into a pile, Loimos pushed the beds together, the legion of peasants were beginning to kick into the barricades.

Loimos swung the lantern at the wooden frame of the bed in the middle, splashing the oil on the sheets, the fire bursted as Loimos stepped away and made his way back into the attic he had crawled out of.

He waited for a little while, listening to the crowd’s gasps and curses as they realised everything was burning down, they had nothing at hand to even try to contain the flames, their attention was completely diverted from catching the scorned killer to searching for a solution to stop the flames from spreading to other habitations.

He slipped through the crack in the roof that he had used as his first entry and stepped out, simply taking a long step onto another nearby house and then climbing down further, away from the mob and back onto the prowl.

"Stop there!"

Or not.

The fellow that had stopped him hadn’t been spotted by Loimos’s sense for life, not because he was particularly stealthy or anything of that sort, the young guard had simply been napping whilst standing and had remained so still, that he had mixed into his surroundings.

This guard was wearing the same sort of iron armour as all of the others, a basic chestplate and helm, the rest was protected by thick gambeson, it might not seem like much but it was more than enough for most problems they could be made to deal with.

He pointed his spear unsteadily at the undead, it made no doubt in the youth’s mind that he had just accidentally stumbled upon the sad faced man, but he wasn’t particularly happy about it, he had only found him because his colleague had left him there!

Leaving the new guy where he was after he had fallen asleep on the job would have been funny normally, certainly not when a bloodthirsty psycho roamed the surroundings.

"Don’t move! Drop your weapon and lay down on the ground! Face against the ground!" at least his tone wasn’t a dead giveaway that he was pissing his pants in fright.

Loimos didn’t abide by the orders and instead began taking steps toward the guard.

"Hey… Oi! Didn’t you hear what I just said?! Stop right here! I’ll seriously impale you!" he wasn’t going to be impaling anybody, he didn’t have the guts to strike first, even at a loathsome personage like the murderer in front of him.

The undead was well about to send all of the guard’s teeth flying, but was interrupted as a crossbow bolt hit him right in the side of his head, the strength of the projectiles enough to push him away.

The dull sound of the bolt piercing fabric and rotten flesh before hitting a skull made the youth back away.

An older guard emerged from another alley.

"Damn boy! I go take a piss further away and you find the sad faced fricker?" the dry laugh of the man was in complete antithesis with the situation.

"Why are you laughing?! Your bolt just bounced off this guy’s head!" it certainly looked that way, this bolt had been shot from a proper crossbow, were it not for Loimos garbing himself with additional defences, he would have had a hole in his skull right now.

He rubbed the place he had been struck, like a non-undead would and just ran off, sprinting away as suddenly as he had arrived.

The youth looked at the retreating figure and then at his senior multiple times over.

"Are we not giving chase?"

"You think you can catch up?"

"No, but we could still try something…"

"He is already gone though, bastard is quick on his feet, how the hell does he take corners at those speeds?" the older guard had given up on pursuing Loimos the second he saw that speed, his ageing body wasn’t going to be of any use.

The younger fellow may seem more capable, but he was as lean as it gets, no muscles, no stamina, no stats and no XP, such was the state of this rather poor duo.

"We running to give alarm!" the older one had just been taking his time to prepare for another exercise, they weren’t going to be catching up to anyone worth their salt, but not every single guard was like this.

The sound of bells soon sounded throughout the night, it rang three times in quick succession, this was the code signifying that the target had been spotted and was on the run.