The wilds surrounding Arimens no-longer resembled the verdant wildlands and farms Ynguinian and I had journeyed through many years prior. What communities survived obliteration were small, fractured, and starving. The Moringian army brought them much-needed rations when we passed through. The paths were so muddy and covered with waste, and the lands so polluted and desecrated that it was difficult to tell where the ruin brought upon the earth marching soldiers ended and the once-verdant wildlands began. I am fortunate that due to my leg I did not have to walk these paths and instead rode in a carriage, for I certainly would have made a fool of myself.

Among the soldiers one could sense a creeping illness of the mind, one which I had only seen once before on the thundered plains years prior: a deep and lingering dread. We had yet to reach the plains of Urostrian’s tomb, and already the soldiers feared the journey that lay ahead. The shriekers had become more aggressive, and their territory had expanded. None of the towns of the thundered plains remained; their citizens either fled or were left as carrion for the fattening horde of aberrations. 

Even the officers and us mages were wary of the plains, although we would never admit such to the common soldier. We did not know why the shriekers had suddenly become more active, although members of the council believed it could be the work of a necromancer. The thundered plains are a place for men beyond desperation; those willing to turn to foul magicks and bring Decay upon themselves. 

Even though I had seen the shriekers before, and had reason to believe that no harm would come to me, I prepared a spell in secret. While I was not as strong in the domain of weather as Corindrian, nor was I paladin like Raluros, I knew those wicked abominations feared lightning the most. However I could only use the crafted spell once, so I vowed to withhold my power in patience and only cast the spell if our situation was truly dire.

Sensing the Kalipaonin Regiment’s discomfort, Commander Partelin addressed his men the day before we reached the thundered plains. Nearly a thousand of us all gathered before him as he stood high above us on the roof of his carriage and spoke deep and loud outwards over the throng of fearful men.

He told them to not fear, and to toss aside hesitance as they walked through the gravesite of Urostian, for the sixth saint favors those with a resolve of stone. They were soldiers of Moringia, and for that reason the saintly quality of hardiness was expected of them. So long as they held themselves as stoics, no harm would come. 

It was a good speech, but it was not for the officerst.  Privately we were told that men would die and there was nothing we could do to change that. While now we were of the good fortune that I could keep the storms away and thereby prevent lightning from striking the wooden carriages, four mages would not be enough to prevent men from dying. Some as young as their seventeenth year, possibly younger, would not make it through to the river Kalipaonin.

On the first day in the thundered plains, we encountered an omen of what was to come. A large shrieker, easily larger than any I had seen previously, lay dead in the gray and turbid mud. It had engorged itself on the corpses of the ghost towns, causing its stomach to burst from an excess of rotting flesh. From then on I prepared the spell of unnoticing, and cast it upon myself each night before bed. I asked my tent-mate, Marinon, to cast the spell of noticing within the tent each morning before she left, just to make sure I would not be left behind. She asked me to do the same for her. This ritual left the thundered plains with us, and for nearly two years we cast the spell upon ourselves each night.

The Regiment’s first week on the thundered plains was calm. Morale had improved as the men had finally grown to know one another, and we had yet to be troubled by the wretched shrieks of the thundered plains. Captain Bryndin and the few veterans he had brought along sang tunes from the south for the rest of the battalion, and on one of the nights some of the greenhorns had managed to get Sergeant Hahmursian, the quartermaster, excessively drunk. I refused anything beyond cider, since I needed my faculties at all times. When one of the common soldiers kept offering me drinks, the Sergeant (rather drunkenly) used that soldier as an example making it very clear that no one should be offering me any such drinks.

The second week on the thundered plains is when men began to disappear. First, one man from the fifth battalion could not be found in his tent. We did not figure it was a shrieker yet, for he was a known drunkard and a lousy soldier. As they say in the region of Temini: only idiots, the desperate, and heroes wander the wilds on their lonesome. 

The worry from weeks prior began to slowly infest the regiment as more honorable men went missing. A young man from Arimens, not older than eighteen years, went missing in the middle of dinner. Men began to lose sleep as they offered themselves up for additional watch duties, and the drunken and rowdy greenhorns became compliant, attentive, and sober. 

If the shriekers were showing up to grab men in their sleep, which many were certain it was, they were doing it silently. The thing about shriekers, however, is that they were never silent. The wretched things always made noise, for they were crude recreations of life made by a powerful and twisted necromancer hundreds of years ago. It was only possible if the beasts had learned; if somehow, their rotting minds had grown to understand silence. We did not want to believe it, because for many centuries they were known for their piercing shriek that sounded of shattering glass and torrential wind. If they learned, then it would mean that something, or someone, had changed their nature.

It meant Necromancy. 

The attacks began in the third week of the month we spent on the thundered plains. It was nighttime, and my battalion was sitting by a raging bonfire when a large shrieker dove down and grabbed one of the men, his name was Bastilan,  and dragged him through the roiling flame and upwards into the stygian night. We could hear his screaming becoming more distant until it was smothered by the ragged howls of more skirmishing aberrations. 

Men ran for their crossbows and for shelter as a dozen or so men were taken into the dotted black. We were not quick enough to react, and from then forth all men were required to keep crossbows upon themselves at all times. Mages and officers were to stay in the carriages, and each watch duty was officially doubled. Commander Partelin promised the Kalipaonin Regiment would not be caught unawares again, but the officers and I knew it was a lie. The Commander had told us that he expected more deaths, and more surprises before we were beyond the thundered plains. Two nights later there was a second attack. Twenty men died.

I had considered casting my spell of protection during the skirmish, but I held off on it. I knew that if the attacks were going to worsen it would be best for me to wait to cast the spell. Most likely I would fall violently ill, and the only things those wretched undead covet more than someone caught unawares are the bodies of the ill. And so I waited through two more attacks. 

By the time of the final attack we had lost a hundred and twenty men on the plains. Some were deserters, desperate for their lives. Some fought valiantly to protect their comrades. All were consumed by the disgusting fiends and their howling maws. Quatimonian could not cast spells, as he was ill from repelling the beasts, and Nestyne had lost control of his hands from a summoning gone wrong (it would be many weeks until he could cast spells again). Protection of the regiment was left to myself and Marinon. 

Her and I stopped preparing spells of healing by this point, for all of the victims would be devoured one way or another. Instead we focused on the spells that we could cast in tandem, and spells favored by Urostian’s domain. The night Raluros protected Ynguinian and I from the shriekers was emblazoned into my memory. We knew the weakness of the beasts. It was just a matter of patience to ensure our survival. Cast the spell too soon, and our regiment would fall when we became too ill to cast another. Cast the spell too late and it would be a futile effort.

It was the middle of the day, and the regiment could tell we had made it to the edge of the plains, for we marched past the stone ruins of the ghost towns that were once home to liars and swindlers that sold rotted meat and dirty water. As I needed to avoid casting superfluous spells, the sky was cloudy and gray as a slab of granite. Nearing noon, suddenly, and without warning, a dense white fog rolled through. It was only knee height, but with it came a bitter cold I had not felt since the nights I had spent on the peaks of perpetual winter. Looking upward, it almost seemed as the clouds had split to reveal the night sky. 

However, it was not night, for as the clouds split further it became apparent that the blackness above us was a descending horde of shriekers. Their collective scream sounded of grinding metal and rattling thunder as they dove with haste towards the regimented. 

I began to chant the words of the spell in the first language, but the fog that had grabbed the knees snaked up my chest and nearly froze my tongue. Someone had cast a spell with the intention of silencing Marinon and myself. If I could not unfreeze my tongue, the regiment would collapse.

I moved as hastily as I could, nearly tripping over my bad leg to the one solution I could think of: a bottle of wine on the back of the carriage. I uncorked with my teeth, and haphazardly spoke the word in the first language for fire before taking a large swig of the bottle. Then, handing the bottle to Marinon, my body and all of my limbs began to burn with immense pain as I raised my arms upwards and began to shape the spell inspired by Raluros’s smiting on the same plains many years ago.

My head began to thunder, for I had slurred some of the words, but I stayed obstinate in my course. If I did not cast the spell, we were doomed. While I could not bring down a storm of lightning large enough to smite the shriekers, I knew I could craft a spell with which to buy us two days worth of travel, hopefully enough to get us out of the fell beasts’s range: I had combined the spell of unnoticing with the spell to conjure thunder.

High above in the unblemished gray of clouds a loud and resonant thunder sounded throughout the muddy plains. The shrieks paused, and dove for us once more. Again, the thunder reverberated through the bodies of the men of the regiment, and the beasts. The shriekers paused longer that time, before continuing their assault.

Finally, a third time. All of the men of the regiment fell to the ground vomiting up gravel and dirt as the shriekers stopped in the air, and flew back west towards their abominable nest. We would go unnoticed for two days at best. Enough time for respite, and for reinforcements from the fort to reach us. I do not remember much of the rest of the journey. I did not sleep for nearly three days, but apparently several of the men died from expelling too much gravel and stone from their bodies. It was a harsh lesson in why mages do not cast enchanting magicks on squadrons of people. 

The regiment arrived at the fort on the river Kalipaonin in low spirits, battered, and ill. Perhaps the experience made us stronger, that’s what some of the veterans said. I did not feel strong, no. Once my illness passed, I began to feel the burden of guilt. It would be a familiar presence for the coming years. 

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