The Reformation Wars: The Trump of Ibis

Chapter 12

The cold breeze whizzing across the sweat of Dustin's brow caused his skin to sting. He gritted his teeth, embroiled in a close-quarters skirmish with the ghastly warriors Tanuk had resurrected with his magic. All in various states of decay, his unnatural foes marched doggedly onward. No passion gleamed behind their lifeless eyes, only an unrelenting resolve to bury Dustin and his comrades in the graves they'd just crawled out of.

Dustin caught a hooked blade with his own sword. Metal screeched against metal while the undead warrior pulled away to attempt a second attack. Lacking true life, the corpse moved slower than Dustin, allowing him to rush out of harm's way and stab the thing in the back. Blood dribbled from the wound, then gushed when he yanked his blade out, but the warrior hadn't been felled yet. Having died once already, it appeared the cadaver had developed a good deal of pain tolerance.

The rusty hook arced at eye level, and Dustin barely crouched in time to evade. Watching the blade pass by overhead, he moved to counter. With a mighty cry, Dustin slashed down on the corpse's shoulder. He put such power into the attack that it severed the entire arm. One-handed, the living carcass could no longer wield its pole-arm effectively. When it attempted to press on with the attack anyway, Dustin landed a high kick in the middle of its chest.

With that foe knocked over for the time being, Dustin took a quick glance around and spotted Paulo in trouble. Three undead warriors had surrounded him, each armed with meatier weapons than the sword he wielded. He warded off their attacks with power and vigor, but the effort visibly tired him.

Dustin charged into the fray, his blade a blur. Off with the tallest corpse's head. He leapt at the next foe, a skeletal body with a mere patchwork of flesh remaining on its bones. Once he crossed weapons with the sparingly-skinned warrior, he realized he'd left the first one too soon. Even without a head, the undead could continue to fight. A high blow raced for Dustin's shoulder blade.

Spinning out of harm's way, Dustin dodged, just in time for the axe blade to bury itself in the broken ribs of his skeletal foe. The two undead struggled to extricate the weapon from the bone cage, in which time Paulo dispatched the third and nodded at Dustin. Wordlessly, they coordinated an attack on the interlocked cadavers.

Dustin hacked away every single one of the limbs until the corpse lay in pieces on the snowy ground, each fragment too small to be of any concern. Then he glanced up to see Paulo had shoved the skeleton against a particularly tall gravestone and broken its brittle bones to dust. It dropped to its knees with such force that its jaw clattered to the ground.

The two men spun away from one another to engage new targets. Dustin dashed at an undead archer, cutting its bowstring before it could fire a single arrow. Gazing upon its form, he couldn't help but shudder; the man must have died only days prior. Much of the color remained in his skin, and little of his dark hair had fallen out. Even a little of the vitality of a spirit's presence seemed to have lingered.

He also moved faster than the more decayed warriors Dustin had fought thus far. Instantly dropping the ruined bow, he wrenched Dustin's arm and forced him to drop his sword. The fresh body yanked his royal victim about, completely oblivious to the brutal blows being thrown at his jaw.

Dustin managed to jet out his leg in such a way that his captor tripped. Down they went together. The corpse's grip still remained uncompromised. With all his might, he rammed his elbow into his foe's cold cheek over and over again. Not so much as a sound escaped his lips, no indication whatsoever that his strength had availed anything.

A crossbow bolt flew toward the pair, and Dustin threw himself aside as much as he could. The projectile buried itself deep in the corpse's free hand, pinning it to the ground like a board nailed to a wall. Distracted momentarily, it loosened its grip and allowed Dustin to escape.