Quoted By:
At your word, Boric pulls five of the men-at-arms away from their formation to help wrangle the children back into the church. It is not the most defensible position you've tasked Boric with defending before, but its stout stone walls should suffice against an unsophisticated horde of orcs and goblins, milling about without leadership from their master. Once the children are inside, the men-at-arms get to work, piling stones into the hole left in the wall by Hilde's door-knocker.
He has the horn as well, should the situation change. You know the signals by heart. If your father hadn't done a good enough job drilling them into you as a child, your dill master took care of it once you ran off to join the army in your father's stead.
Leaving the church behind, the Undead follow you through the forest. Silent as the grave, the only sound they make upon their last parade is the crunch of the leaves beneath their skeletal feet. They march on with a slow, lumbering gate, every footstep heavy with the weight of inevitability. For though they follow the Light of Faith that shines in the green glow of your lantern, they are each of them as durable as the zombies that you fought within the church.
Undead do not die easily. Only Holy Water and the Light can put them down for good.
Your men-at-arms march in lockstep with them, through the brush that covers the forest floor. Whatever nerves they must feel at walking within the tireless dead are dispersed by the knowledge that you walk at the head of this bone-filled column. No expression escapes from the mask of their helms, but you have seen the grim faces as they march to war before.
"You've done this before, haven't you?" Damien asks, though you suspect he already knows the answer.
"I was an altar girl," you tell him. With every step forward, you sway the staff that holds the lantern back and forth, in perfect rhythm with every foot-fall that crunches the leaves. "I led the Last Parade every Soulsmarch, it was one of my dutires to the church."
Damien shakes his head in the negative. "No, I mean you've led the undead around like this before, haven't you?"
"Let us leave the interviews for another time, Damien," you tell him. A thin smile crosses your face as his twists into a a most delightful look of frustration. The sort of face you like to see made by seedy merchant, petty bureaucrats, heretical sorcerers, and other unseemly folk who think they can pull the wool over your eyes. "We have more important matters to attend to, now."
As you speak, you breach the edge of the woodlands and step into the early evening sun. The light of the day has only just begun to wane, the sun beginning to dip beneath the treeline on its way to a proper dusk. To the south you can hear the sound of battle, with the acrid scent of smoke and burning flesh carrying on the wind.
Before you stands the Tower of the Hand.
