The Guardsman and the Witch

Chapter III - The Fallen Fortress

There were several more undead footmen but finishing them that was not hard; as they did, the two went on through the forest, the ruined kingsroad continued here and led the travelers to a ruined fortress, it was less old and frayed than the watchtower to the north, it seemed that this one was build much later maybe during the war or right before its start, nobody could tell it now as all the soldiers were all turned into undead who lost their minds. But maybe somebody else was here still in one's mind, the smith told about some travelers, maybe not everyone went mad at least for now, besides they knew that not all of the undead were completely insane as they saw Eras who not only could remember things from his past but also was able to do his job as perfectly as he did while being human, so hope was in Raime's heart, at least now he knew he could resist the curse that the witch-lord had casted upon him, the only thing he had to do is to fight the other undead, he did not hesitate killing them as these were no more humans, they felt nothing, it would only free them from such an unenviable fate, besides this way he continued fulfilling his duty - protecting ordinary people from their attacks if the undead were to go south. Raime never surrendered, such was his nature and he even believed that the skulls would be able to cure him and Eras and everyone else who still did not lose their minds completely.

The fortress had several towers which were almost ruined by now and two floors, the entrance was free as the gate were crushed, as the two went inside they saw undead guardsmen in the courtyard, they were dressed like Raime but with a different coat of arms - an eagle that was all rusted and damaged, they had lost their fighting skills long ago and were no problem too, to fight them Raime used his sword that now was extremely sharp, mostly he tried striking damaged places in their armor, if that was the neck he could finish them quickly cutting off their heads, Lizzy used colorless magic "Mortis" and "Suskrad" spell that fired a colorless energy ball into them and eliminated the undead and their armor completely, mostly there were undead footmen inside and only few guardsmen. Now they went inside the ruined building where the guardsman and the witch saw the first dead Heathes giant - he was about ten meters high and very mighty, he had body of a very muscular man and head of a bull with horns now broken, there was not much left of his clothes but they could see that once he was topless and wore some kind of a kilt, a giant club was lying near his left arm, all wounded he was with many wounds all over his body that killed him, no dead soldiers were lying around him as all of them stood up and were undead now, only ones completely smashed with the club could not wake up or they did but could not be seen.

"Why he did not wake up?" Raime asked.

"He was a creature of colorless magic, it floated inside his veins, and colorless magic cannot affect relative creatures this way at least!"

"Why did they ever start the war?"

"No idea... of religious believes as the smith told us, I guess he meant they worshiped different gods - colored and colorless!"

"I think that was not the only reason!"

"Me too, but I really care not, what I do care about are the skulls and my power!"

Now they were on the second floor, it was almost ruined and the travelers could not find anything, the bad thing was that knew not what exactly they were searching for - some sort of a key but what it looked like, not like an ordinary key of course.

"Do you have any idea how it looks like?"

"Aye! It must be a stone!"

"A stone? Why?"

"One of the things of yore, such keys were used to open and close doors for no one else to use it accept the owner!"

"So they are enchanted?!"