The Rising

If you ask anyone where they were the day it all began they will undoubtedly have an answer for you. Most of these people have little to mark the passage of time except for events-- the birth of a neighbor's calf, or a son, or an illness, a storm or a church sermon that was particularly rousing that day. They know the seasons and they take heed of the days, but they rarely could tell you a specific date about any given event. Though most of them know the date the bells died out in the belfries across the kingdom; when all the gates shut tight forever; when the guard turned from so many fat, overfed sods concerned more with the fighting and fucking they'd be doing in the tavern with their paycheck than their aimless patrols through the streets, breaking up a fight perhaps, or knocking a cutpurse upside the head with a billy club and dragging him into a cell. Those kinds of crimes, incidentally I've found, stopped nearly completely after the cursed began shambling out of the forest. I suppose it was good for solidarity in that respect. Like always I'm beginning to drift off into tangents and supposition. I can only preface the story by saying some people take this war to the cursed with an axe or a mace; being slight of frame, I take it with my pen. I write these words to our children, supposing the world does not die before you can read them; and they be found. This is the story of our people and the time of the Shamblers.