Primordial Breaker

Crouching down, Leander inspected the old corpse of a stag. It seemed to have been here for some time judging by its rotten flesh, but then again. This was the Undead Kingdom, who was to say this stag wasn't already dead before dying its final death?

Shaking his head, Leander moved away from the corpse. Taking in his surroundings, it was all rather bland. Dead grass, dead trees, even the ground itself, the dirt seemed dead.

"How very fitting."

It had been two days and two nights since Leander had departed from Funerary. With no need to take a break, to set up camp and sleep – something his undead body did not need – Leander was able to cover a sizable amount of ground.

Stopping at the top of a hill, Leander looked out over an abandoned village and beyond it, a large mountain range blocked the view. Scratching the back of his neck, Leander couldn't help but let out a deep sigh.

"Walk west she says. Walk west and I'll send a friend to find you she says. What's the point if I'm here already?"

Squinting into the setting sun as it began to dip below the mountain range, Leander rubbed his brow. As he tilted his head downwards, something caught his eye. A small raven stood next to him, its gleaming purple eyes gazed at the setting sun.

After a moment feminine voice chirped from the raven's beak as it turned to Leander.

"Who knows, you might like to be informed on what the problem is. It is a pleasure to meet you, Hero."

Blinking a couple of times, Leander made a small confused face at the bird and then inhaled to regain his composure. Looking back to the village, he began walking down the hill the raven following close behind him. In no time Leander reached the village, it looked just like Funerary, run-down almost abandoned. Having assumed that all structures would share these traits, Leander wasn't too surprised, what did surprise him was the lack of people. Leander came to a stop by an empty fountain in the middle of a small public square.

"The sun is only just setting, yet this place is deserted."

Landing on his shoulder, the raven looked around with him.

"It is rather strange. The villages bordering the Beast Kingdom mine resources from the mountain range, at this time of day the inhabitants should be returning from the mines."

Breathing in, Leander tilted his head slightly to face the raven.

"How did you find me?"

"Find you? I have been following you since you left the castle."

Crossing his arms, Leander slowly nodded.

"I see, so that's what that was."

The raven responded a few seconds later, her voice surprised.

"You had noticed my presence… As expected of a Hero, allow me to introduce myself."

Hopping onto the side of the fountain, the raven turned around. Stretching out a wing it held it to its chest.

"I am Ravenmother. One of the queen's trusted few, I hold the position of Master of Intelligence on the Undead Council. I handle spying on all of the other kingdoms so that, my lady can effectively plan on how to deal with them. In fact, I am the one who alerted her that beasts were running amok on our eastern border."

Leander remained still trying to process this new information. Leander just couldn't believe that such a small bird was the 'Master of Intelligence. The small bird – Ravenmother – continued watching Leander until he spoke again.

"One of the queen's trusted few? No offence, but you seem a little small to be able to offer any real aid outside of spying on one conversation. Ugh, I digress. That queen of yours said she would be in touch. How?"

Chirping, Ravenmother shook her head.

"Oh hero, this body may be small. But I have eyes everywhere and I'm afraid something important has arisen since you left. My lady is seeing to it herself, but she left you a message."

Clearing her throat, Ravenmother continued to talk – although her voice was a little different, as she poorly imitated Melaine's voice.

"Tell the Hero to deal with the beasts threatening the outer villages. I will not stand idle as humans, demons or beasts of any kind threaten my people."

"So she wants me to kill beasts? Yeah, I can kill beasts."

Looking around, Leander's eyes narrowed on the largest of the houses near the square. It looked to be the village's town hall.

"Come out! I know you're there!"

After a few moments of silence, shuffling could be heard from the town hall. The door slowly opened, and from it, a single zombie followed by two more stepped out into the dusk. The single zombie with balding grey hair, a missing eye and many missing teeth. The old zombie slowly walked towards him with a cane.

The man's expression was cold as he approached Leander.

"Please, we seek no trouble human. We are just a small village, we have nothing to offer you."

"Offer me?"

Leander was confused for a moment, shaking his head he looked to Ravenmother, before looking back.

"I'm not here to take anything from you, far from it. I was sent here to kill beasts."

This time it was the old zombie's turn to furrow what was left of his brow in confusion.

"Sent here? By whom? I can hardly imagine the Guild would send an Adventurer here, especially as the Guild knows nothing of our plight."

Leander shook his head.

"I don't know anything about a Guild or about Adventurers, the Lich Queen sent me here."

Hearing these words caused the old man's face to light up. His cold expression melted away almost immediately, as he took a few more steps forward.

"Our queen sent you! Wait. You. Are you the hero? We had received news that she had gathered all she needed for the ritual, but… I never would have believed it would work. Oh, such news!"

Turning around, the man held his hands up.

"Spread the word, our glorious queen has sent a hero to save us!"

Watching the expressions of the zombies soften, Leander turned his head away. It was somewhat of a nice feeling – an almost familiar. His very presence was like a ray of sunlight that shone through the dark clouds of their worries.

'So this…This is what it is to bear the title of Hero. To think I had almost forgotten.'

As the warm feeling began to settle under Leander's pale skin. He felt something moving behind him – at the same moment, Ravenmother's voice called out a warning.

"Hero, behind you!"

A beast jumped past Leander, its jaws wide, aiming directly for the old man's head. Alerted by his instinct and Ravenmother's warning, Leander's hand shot forward grabbing the beast's neck and in one quick motion crushing its esophagus. Turning around he flung the corpse at more of the approaching beasts, reaching for his sword with his right arm, he swung his left arm out.

"Back inside!"

The first beast lept at him. With his outstretched arm, Leander punched it aside. A second beast went for his arm, it was too slow as Leander had drawn his sword. Driving his sword down through the beast's skull pinning its corpse to the ground. It went limp as two more beasts jumped towards Leander.

Managing to smack one of the beasts away, Leander was too slow to defend against the second as it caught Leander by the arm. Colliding with Leander with enough force to knock him onto his back and away from his sword which was still buried in one of the other beast's skulls. As the beast gnawed against Leander's gauntlet – its teeth too weak to do any damage to the dragon scale – he tried to reach for his sword with his free hand. 

"I thought you said you had eyes everywhere!"

Leander called out to Ravenmother who was simply perched on a windowsill watching Leander fight.

"I do, but I only have one set of eyes in this region. I would summon more, but I think you've got five measly snapjaws."

With an indignant sigh, Leander gave up reaching for his sword. Balling his fist, he punched into the beast's body. It went limp a few moments later as Leander crushed its heart. Throwing the snapjaw's beast off of him, he sat up.

"Three left."

The Snapjaw he had smacked away before being knocked down had taken up chewing his ankle. Clenching his fist, Leander swung down caving the snapjaw's skull in.

"Two left."

Moving to his sword, Leander quickly pulled it out of the dead beast's skull. One of the last two snapjaws ran towards Leander jumping towards him its maw open wide, its sharp teeth preparing to chomp down.

Catching the snapjaw by its neck, Leander watched it flail around its claws fruitlessly scratching against its armour. Looking past it to the last of the snapjaws who had tried to attack him. Leander raised his sword cutting the snapjaw's head clean off in one motion. As Leander let it go, the last snapjaw was already running before the beheaded corpse hit the floor.