"Cleric- Prologue" by Kareem Shaw

            Another day was ending. The scattered leaves dispersed along the dried earth floated upon the autumn breeze. The land was slowly falling asleep as winter drew closer. As the Cleric stood on the hilltop he wondered if it was truly falling asleep, or merely dying. As the shadows grew longer the young man wondered how long it would be before darkness completely covered the land… forever.

            The smell of burnt oak was in the air. Some farmer was probably keeping his home warm… and well lit. Doors would be locked before long. They would be locked against the anticipation of the evil that emerged each evening. The Cleric did what he could, but it often useless if not utterly pointless considering the damage that was nightly done. The damage to human hearts, lives, and minds.

            The wind pulled at his white robes as it stirred about his feet. The air was growing colder as the last half of the sun began to sink below the horizon. Only the portions of his body that were exposed felt the cold. His robes were well insulated. In fact, he could stand out in the elements for days if need be. Yet as the last bit of the sun dipped out of sight, the young man knew that he wouldn’t be using the robes for warmth. Instead he’d be using the padding woven in to protect him… from the undead.

            The howls began within moments. Dogs were always the first to call out the warning. Their ability to sense the unnatural was uncanny. They were coming. Shambling monsters that they were, the Cleric always anticipated the casualties. The village he stood before was small. The casualties hopefully wouldn’t be high. With only a few families he wouldn’t have a mass of fronts to defend. Yet as he watched the movement on the horizon, the young man began to lose his optimism.

            It was a lone figure at first, yet two more followed after it, moments afterwards. The numbers began to grow exponentially. It was going to be a mob tonight. The Cleric began walking away from the village to meet them. Once he moved, window shades were pulled shut and the dogs, which were going crazy by this time, were pulled in. He’d warned them about that. Though the dogs helped at first to take down the half-steppers, they often became a greater menace once they were turned. A baby began crying, and was quickly silenced. Good, let them not know which houses kept the young… seeing them changed was always a wretched sight.

            The Cleric gripped the leather bound hilt of his mace tightly. He then loosened his hold. He alternated between these two motions, in an attempt to workout the tenseness within his hand. When he heard the moans, his left hand joined his right on the hilt, both hands now repeating the exercise. The smell that assaulted his senses was almost unbearable. Excrement, rotting corpse meat, it all assimilated into one stench that would have crippled an ordinary man. Part of the Cleric welcomed it. This was his purpose. This was why he was here. To him… it smelled like destiny.

            With nearly preternatural alacrity his feet brought him closer to the horde. He leapt into the air, the now brisk wind whipping at his gossamer robes. He landed with a sickening snap upon the head of one of the shambling beasts. At the same time he smashed his mace into the face of another of the zombies. Before any of them could react he spun around, arms fully extended to bash several of the creatures in their distended abdomen.

After clearing a circle around him he began his methodic work of destroying the men and women who’d been killed only to be resurrected into a mockery of their former lives. One of the creatures struck out at him, and the young man dodged the attack. He swept under the arm of his assailant and brought his mace into the creature’s back. The necroplasm that animated the beast splattered into the air. The Cleric dismissed it to roll between the legs of another zombie. He spun around to bash his weapon into the back of it’s head. The town was forgotten as the creatures turned towards this new threat. It stood in the way of their feast, and they would not have it.

The Cleric soon found that his attempts to fight off his attackers faltering. They had surrounded him and he lacked the room to evade them. He held out his hands to the heavens, calling for the strength to destroy these beings of evil. The half-steppers immediately backed away from him. It was as if the very action had harmed their bodies. Indeed it had, for sizzling could be heard as parts of their exposed forms began to burn. The young man began to move forward once more, destroying the shambling beasts. Though his strength began to ebb, he willed himself forward. He would not allow the people in the town to be harmed. He would not allow their lives to be swallowed up by death, only to be spat out as more of these… things.

The barks of the dogs within the town were subsiding. It was as if they could sense that something was happening outside. As if they knew that the battle for the town was being won, by the powers of righteousness. In one tense home a mother held her two children close to fireplace. Her husband stood by the door, axe in hand. He was ready to defend his family. The dogs had stopped barking. Had the townspeople been saved? Suddenly, there was a knock at the door, a large thump as something landed against it.

“Don’t open it!” the woman cried out in fear.

The husband nodded to her, yet was torn. Could that have been the cleric? The woman, seeing the struggle in her husbands face repeated her cry. Yet the man’s compassion won out. He lifted the wooden beam that barred the door and in fell the Cleric, exhausted.

“They’re dead”, he mumbled as he began to lose consciousness. “They will finally rest in peace… or pieces.”