"King Radavaar can go fuck himself!"
Sir Garrick lifted his cup as if he had just given a toast to the man himself. Then he poured it out.
"To the king," he said.
The other knights laughed. Sir Alric almost kicked over his ale.
"One day they will hang you for talking like that, you know," he declared, belching, wiping foam from his mouth.
Garrick had another drink and said, "In that case, my friend, I'd better make the most of tonight, then."
"It's the same shit you've been saying for twenty years, now."
"Aye," Garrick agreed, taking another drink. "And it's true every time, Alric."
More laughter went around the fire at that.
It was a bad night for drinking the way they all were for the rain had been falling since sunset, starting off light and increasing steadily, so that the camp became a patch of mud. The fire struggled to keep itself alight under the wet wood and each time the wind blew it, the smoke came straight into their faces.
"Gods, damn this smoke," one of them complained, switching seats again.
Most of them were too tired to care. Their armor lay scattered all around them, the various pieces of steel and leather drying as well as they could beside the flames. The boots were covered with mud, the cloaks contaminated by the odor of wet wool. There were six swords within easy reach. They would most likely need them tomorrow.
But not tonight.
Tonight, they drank.
Garrick then distributed a small leather pouch.
"Tobacco?" he offered the others.
Alric scoffed. "You thought I disliked the shit before. The only things I dislike are tobacco, ale, and women."
He snatched the pouch anyway.
"You hate women?" Garrick pressed.
"Only when they're talking," Alric answered with a grin.
"So you hate them most of the time, then," Garrick grinned.
"Only time I respect women is when they're naked and riding my cock, aye," Alric blurted, his laughter echoing into the night.
For the next few minutes the only sound then was that of the rain and there was sometimes the crackle of the fire.
"Radavaar's raised his taxes again, the cunt," Alric said then.
The youngest of the knights, Tomas, looked over at that. "Again?"
"Aye." Alric spit into the fire.
"By how much this time?" Tomas demanded. "I nearly lost my land with the last increase..."
"My brother was only able to sell two horses, if that tells you anything," Garrick added, shaking his head.
"Two horses? That ain't nothin' at all! My cousin had to get rid of his entire damned mill to pay the rate of."
"My cousin never had a mill..."
"He does now."
"You told us he was a cooper?"
"Aye, the man can be both, can he not?"
"You don't know what you're saying, you're drunk."
"I've been drinkin'."
"Is that not the same thing?"
Garrick laughed again. Tomas smiled despite himself, knowing that laughing was easier.
A hell of a lot easier than considering the army stationed in the dark outside the camp; easier than considering the reason for their being sent here.
He'd termed it a rebellion. A northern uprising. A problem that had to be addressed before it could spread any further than it already had. Yet it appeared that no one else in the camp was any longer very sure about the existence of a rebellion. The villages they'd passed through to get here had been empty.
Doors stood open, meals placed on the table. Next to the fire in one of the farmhouses there was a child's wooden toy. No bodies had been found, though. That was the portion that kept coming back to Sir Garrick. He had seen many dead men before --- he'd made a lot of them himself over the years --- but to have a village without a single corpse was something different.
He rubbed some tobacco between his fingers, looking over at the scouts. "Hear anything out there?"
The laughter faded. Alric shrugged. "Nothing good, anyway."
"That's a shitty answer."
"The enemy hasn't been found yet, what more do you want, kid?" One of the scouts snapped back at Tomas.
Garrick frowned. "You guys have been out there since this morning."
"Yeah?"
"And you've found nothing at all?" Garrick pressed, staring into the fire.
"Found some tracks," one of them said with a nonchalant shrug.
"From men?"
The scout shook his head. "No."
Nobody asked what kind of tracks they had found.
The rain fell harder. Tomas drew his cloak more closely around himself.
"I don't much care for this place," he said, sniffling.
"Garrick said you didn't like any place," said Alric.
"I liked home."
"You complained about home..."
"I raised a complaint about my father."
"Your father was a bastard, was he not?" asked Garrick.
The flame glowed in Tomas's eyes. "Aye. He was. And a prick, too."
For a while, they welcomed the silence once more.
Garrick heard the rain. He was able to hear thousands of men located somewhere in the darkness of it, coughing, talking, sharpening their blades and moving through the mud while the horses shifted in their harnesses.
An entire army attempting to feign that it wasn't afraid. But everyone was afraid during these dark and trying times.
He turned and looked at Tomas over the crackling fire. The boy was no older than twenty. Too young, he thought. It was a thought Garrick had had about himself once.
He blinked and thirty years had passed him by.
"You married?" Garrick asked Tomas.
Tomas shook his head.
"Got yourself a girl back home?"
A pause.
"I might."
"You might? What the fuck's that mean?" Garrick chortled.
Tomas shrugged. "She doesn't know yet."
The older knights laughed.
"That sounds... promising," remarked Alric.
"She knows alright," said one of the others, eliciting more laughter.
"I'd say you're already married then, lad," added another.
Tomas smiled. "Probably so."
Garrick nodded. "You should write to her."
"I already did."
"Write her again, then."
Tomas looked at him squarely. "Why should I?"
"You're a Knight, kid," Alric intruded. "You've no idea what tomorrow might be your last."
Tomas looked at him with concern now.
"It's best to be prepared, lad, that's all." Finished Garrick.
Nobody was laughing now.
In the camp a horse suddenly tugged at its reins. Everyone heard it. The animal emitted a nervous whinny. A soldier shouted something. Then silence returned.
Alric lowered his cup. "You guys hear that?"
Garrick nodded. "The horse?"
"No." Alric turned towards the dark, where the forest was situated some hundreds of yards outside the campsite, forming a solid wall of black under the rain. "What is that?"
Alric listened more intently.
"I don't hear anything," Garrick said, trying harder himself.
"That," said Alric firmly.
Garrick stared at him. Alric swallowed. The camp had become oddly quiet --- no insects, no birds, no wolves howling in the distance. Even the men had stopped their drunken banter with one another. Garrick stood slowly, his knees aching. He disregarded them as he stared out into the rain.
There was nothing. Just darkness, swollen and looming.
"Eh, it's probably nothing," Tomas said after a beat.
Garrick wanted to agree with the kid. He almost did, too, until a tremor came from under his boot. Very slightly. He looked down, where ripples scarred the mud beside his foot.
No one said anything.
Another tremor came, stronger this time, the cups nearby the fire rattling. One of the horses screamed. Then another. There in the darkness, men started to shout.
"What the hell was that?!"
"Get the horses!"
"Wake the rest of the men!"
"TO ARMS!!"
Garrick grabbed his sword. The earth shifted beneath him once more. This time it was clear there was no mistake. A thing was taking place underneath them. A fissure showing up in the mud, starting as a thin, dark line between those boots of Sir Garrick's.
He stared down at it. A sickly green glow shone under the ground.
Tomas stepped backwards. "What... is that...?
Garrick didn't answer. The crack widened. The mud descended into the darkness below it. Then came the sound, a deep, grinding roar that echoed from somewhere deep underground. The earth split open. Men screamed. The fire sank into the mud when the ground gave way under the camp. The horses broke free of their reins and ran off in all directions. The wagons leaned over. The soldiers stumbled and fell as huge cracks spread across the valley.
Something came out. A hand. Pale, rotten, human.
It curled its fingers into the mud. Another appeared beside it. Then a head. It pulled itself out of the earth with green light glowing within its empty eyes.
Tomas stopped breathing. "Garrick---!"
"I see it!"
More hands broke through all around them, hundreds now --- the dead beginning to emerge from the ground, some wearing armor, some wearing old rags.
In some cases, people had been dead for such a long time that only a very small amount of them remained. A body still had left behind the remnants of a child's dress. A different one moved forward, gripping an old sword with its putrefied hand.
Screaming began among the men surrounding them. Garrick drew his sword, his mouth completely dry. He had fought men before. He had fought wolves. He had battled creatures in the woods which he had never been able to name. Yet he had never fought the living dead.
At the moment he realizing something which frightened him more than the unearthly nature of the creatures themselves.
Beneath this valley were thousands of graves.
The ground kept on splitting. Green fire gushed out of the cracks, lighting up the rain and the frightened faces of the soldiers. Deeper below, a huge thing moved.
Garrick held his sword more tightly. Next to him, Tomas murmured a prayer to the Nine Graces of Crystarium. Garrick looked over at the boy, his brow furrowing.
"Stay right behind me!"
Tomas shook his head. "I can help fight!"
"I know!" Garrick turned his gaze back towards the widening fissure. "Back to back!"
The ground produced another tremendous crack. The darkness down in the valley expanded.
The dead, moaning and writhing and starving, came pouring out.
***********