By the time the news of the disease had reached the other kings, nestled safely in their castles, the Grey Men had already reached a quite formidable number.
They moved together, under one accord towards the next town that would feed their multitudes, town after town fell and yet their hunger remained. By the time they made their move to cross borders their numbers were already spilling over into the millions.
The kingdom of Gronia was hard hit and suffering, income had been drastically reduced due to the just as drastic decrease in population and as such taxes had rapidly risen in order to maintain the defenses in the castle. Men were pulled from their homes as well as jobs and put into the army, and although the army numbers were at an all time high, security itself was at an all time low.
The Grey Men by way of the supernatural left the Gronia kingdom to build itself up once again, then went on a migratory journey. They trekked, the millions of them, through forests and above mountains. They walked underneath the rivers and cut through the cave system that connected the land of Gronia to the land of Zyundme.
The land of Zyundme is situated east of the land of Gronia. The people of Zyundme living on an unforgiving mountain range, with the castle where the king resides being in the center of a giant man-made plateau.
The land of Zyundme was nobody's friend and not even the most resilient of weeds grew there. The area is barren and cold and few animals live there.
This, of course , made the first king of Zyundme to turn to the other kingdoms for the provision of food, having large cartloads of food being pulled across long stretches of unforgiving land before arriving at the kingdom, dropping of the food, then heading back and beginning the journey all over again.
But every coin has two sides, because although almost nothing could survive in the mountains of Zyundme, whatever did was the cream of the crop. Zyundme bred the strongest, most resilient, most intelligent of beings (which could be classified as a new specie, but that is a topic for another time) on its high tops and soon Zyundme had the greatest military power in all of Taul.
The Grey Men met their match with the warrior men and women of Zyundme and their numbers were fanatically cut down. This was mainly due to the fact that they couldn't bite through artfully made armour the warriors had, and the masterfully crafted blades and hammers of the Zyundme warriors were so sharp they cut through the skin and flesh like paper. This was fifty percent because of the master craftsmanship of the sword and fifty percent because of the raw strength of the Zyundme.
The Grey Men took the hint and turned round and left, cutting through once again the Gronian landscape, moving west of the Gronian king castle and into the land of Hulun.
The Hulunite land was a land flowing with milk, honey and magic. The grass was greener on this side and the air was fresher. But it was a land of thick forest. The elves watched over the forest and guarded its darkest secretes with this lives.
The Grey Men attacked them, but they were shot down. Arrows imbued with strength magic slammed into them like fully grown elephants. The 'Zombies' as they were called by the elves were massacred. It was a defeat that would have depressed even the most hearty warrior and caused any army to retreat and rethink its strategy.
The once numerous zombies had been reduced to a number barely above five hundred.
But that is not to say that they didn't deal any damage o the elven army. About a hundred elves were bitten, killed, eaten well not eaten, but they were hurt. Those elves were of course were supposed to turn to the hunger that drove the zombies, but the elves were special, instead of dying they unlocked a new level of elven existence.
