Revenant's Resolve Chapter 13

Most of the electric mage had been consumed.

You’d think that after all these years, I’d be numb to your actions…

Reznik once again had to quell a rising sense of disgust as his body slurped down the gelatinous contents of the mage’s grey matter.

Haven’t you had enough yet, you fat fuck? Our wounds have long since healed. Our hands are even back to normal now!

We need to return to the town, and help them fight off the soldiers.

Besides, the party of guards the Bessarbans sent to check on the mages haven’t returned yet, clearly, so it’s likely we’re going to fight a much larger group of them.

That or they just write the spell-casters off as a loss.

Sounds of gunfire and the clashing of steel still rang out distantly from the town.

Clearly, the townsfolk and their guards weren’t going to give up the fight anytime soon. That meant he needed to make his way back to them as soon as possible

Reznik had hoped that by now, the attackers would have given up, or at least pulled back to re-think their plans. Especially given the fact that night was soon to fall. Fighting over control of the town would be made even more complex and dangerous after dark, for both sides.

Alright.

That’s enough food.

We’re fine, and there’ll be more than enough food in the town for when we finish.

His body froze for a split second before it shoveled another bite of brain matter into its face with a squelching slurp.

I saw that. You heard me.

It’s tim-

His body grabbed a fistfull of bloody viscera from the abdomen of what had once been a woman and stood to its feet.

Oh.

Oh!

Are we listening now?

Wonderful!

Off to the town we go!

Setting off at a slow jog, his body took a bite from the remainder of intestine as it began to pick up pace through the trees - bursting out into the open field that surrounded the town.

Smoke billowed from the edges of the city, open flames licking at gaps in the palisade wall as the invaders clearly had begun to set fire to the structures on the outside of the town.

Shouts and screams could be heard, whoops and hollers of excited soldiers running amok as others fought for their lives.

Just like the wastes, eh old friend?

Hordes of undead chasing after your quarry, scrambling for a share themselves.

Shame for them we’re here.

Reznik’s body had sprinted across the field in a short burst, leaping up and over the palisade wall where it hadn’t yet begun to burn.

Slamming home into the muddy street on the other side with a squelching thud, Reznik found himself beside a group of soldiers - one of which holding a torch to the thatch roof of a home beside him.

The small group of about a dozen men all looked startled and bewildered at his sudden presence, nervously looking to their other compatriots, as if for advice.

Having taken a split second to look at their mud and bloodstained uniforms, Reznik understood they were Bessarban. The attempt at arson would’ve given it away alone, but Reznik took the extra moment of thought just to be sure.

Ripping apart enemy soldiers in front of someone would be terror enough - but Reznik wanted to be absolutely sure that anyone he killed absolutely deserved it.

Being killed and eaten by a Revenant was a punishment that should really only be wished on someone’s worst enemies.

Alright.

Kill them all.

Take a few bites as you move through, but we can’t linger too long.

Leaping for the closest man with a wild howl, Reznik’s body didn’t even give him time to consider what had just happened before lashing out at the soldier’s throat.

Reznik felt and heard the man’s neck snap under the force of being ripped off his feet and hurled at the next closest man like a meat spear.

Internally snorting at his body’s antics, and the group of soldiers immediately turning to flee, Reznik reasoned his body had this fight well in hand. Most of the men before him only had swords and axes. The only two with rifles were the one Reznik had flung, and the one he’d been flung into.

So…

Those fires weren’t started by accident.

These men were intentionally going through and setting the town alight.

Maybe that’s their plan, after all.

Fight wasn’t going well enough for them, or taking too long, so they’re going to spark the place up and leave.

Smart…

Evil, but smart.

“NE! NE! Poshal mo-” the last of the fighting soldiers clearly began to beg for his life, throwing his weapon to the side, along with the torch and falling to his knees.

Apparently, surrender was not good enough for Reznik’s body, however, as he simply leapt atop the soldier’s armored chest, grabbed the soldier’s jaw from the inside of his mouth, and began to pull down and out.

With a pop, followed by a wet tearing sound, the jaw came free from the soldier’s face.

Most of it anyway.

Kill him quick - just put the man out of his misery.

Whether or not it was by instinct or his command, Reznik’s body complied - bringing both his fists down like a hammer on what remained of his opponent’s face with a deep crunch.

Like a switch being flipped, the gurgling screams of the man died out.

Before we start taking the streets one by one, we should go see how Sir Botezatu and his soldiers are doing at the… what should I even call that building?

The keep?

Fuck it, good enough.

Take the roofs, get to the keep, or at least a place we can watch it.

If he’s kept up a good defense, I don’t want to be running into it - the only reason I even managed to make it out of the defenses was because so few were actually looking in my direction.

Like pulling on the reins of a mental horse, Reznik directed his body towards a nearby roof. If he knew the town as well as he thought he did, he would simply have to leap from the wooden apex of the thatch roof, down into the street, and then onto the one of the two-story shops that overlooked the town square.

My oh my, Sir Botezatu and his men put up one hell of a fight, didn’t they?

The road ahead of Reznik was strewn with bodies. Some were clearly laid into orderly lines, ruts in the muddy street from where their feet had been dragged back from the firing line, where they had fallen.

Others appeared to simply have been left where they fell.

Hundreds of men had died for inches of ground into the town square.

While Reznik couldn’t see the square itself from where he perched, he could see the top two floors of the keep, and what he saw didn’t inspire hope. Large scorch marks, pockmarks where bullets had hit, and worst of all an outright lack of the sounds of fighting from that direction.

Oddly enough, it sounded like the main fight was now happening outside the town.

Perhaps they escaped, and are now on the run?

Reznik pondered the possibility as he directed his body towards the roof of the general store ahead of him.

The thought felt like it was something Botezatu would do, from what little Reznik knew of the man, but the fact remained that he likely wouldn’t have had the opportunity.

Not with as many men as Reznik had seen surrounding the square when he’d left.

I should’ve just stayed and fought, instead of running off for the mages.

Leaping upward nearly as soon as his body touched ground, Reznik scrambled the final few feet to the roof of the general store.

The carnage stretched to the rooftop as well, it seemed.

Two dead riverguard laid dead on the roof, which had a large hole blown through the center of it near where the hatch had once been.

Glancing down as he passed, Reznik found the culprit; a carriage-sized chunk of ice that had carved through the roof and second floor of the building before lodging itself solidly into the first floor.

I guess it wasn’t such a bad thing that I dealt with that ice mage, was it?

Proceeding past the hole as if it wasn’t anything of note, Reznik’s body slowly jogged to the other side of the roof, giving Reznik a perfect view of the square beyond.

Oh… they didn’t make it, did they?

A slew of bodies, both Bessarban and not, were strewn about the town square. Men and women alike were lain over defenses, curled into limp fetal positions, and some were simply lying on the ground, as if sleeping.

The copious amount of blood pooling beneath them quickly shattered any hope of that being the case.

Worse still, of the dead here, the Bessarbanss were in the minority.

Four Bessarban soldiers also stood by the front entrance that Reznik had left from not so long ago, armed with rifles. Given the fact that they were facing out, Reznik could assume that the only threats they were worried about were external.

That meant they likely had taken the building.

Fuck.

Shit.

Damn them all.

To hell with you, too, body of mine!

If we hadn’t spent so long snaking blissfully away in seclusion, we might’ve made it in time.

Gods da-

Reznik heard a muffled pop, then a brief shout from inside of the keep.

The guards apparently also heard it, as one of them turned his head over his shoulder and shouted something that sounded like a question.

Someone’s still alive in there!

Yes!

Okay, body of mine, it looks like we have work to do!

Cross the square, kill those guards, and then go inside the building!

Go!

Kill!

Reznik’s body was off in a flash, vaulting over the facade in a wild, shrieking scramble.

Clearly, it had intuitively understood Reznik’s command.

A short drop into the blood-soaked dirt of the town square later, and he was off at a full sprint towards the guards at the door.

All four were currently in the process of raising their rifles to shoot him.

Zig and zag!

Confuse those little shits!

Mentally altering his concept of attack, Reznik was delighted when his body suddenly pushed off one foot and sprang to the side right before a volley of shots rang out.

None hit him.

Continuing to run at the soldiers, Reznik’s body vaulted over a stack of sandbags midway through the square, then dodged again as the first of the soldiers finished reloading his rifle. A second shot rang out a moment later, snapping uncomfortably close to Reznik’s head. By the time the third and forth rifle fired, Reznik was close enough that it was nigh impossible for them to miss.

Both rounds slammed home into Reznik’s chest, but so too did he slam home into the second man from the right, tackling him into the concrete side of the building. After the soldier’s head cracked loudly against the wall, Reznik’s body jerked back and hurled him into the two soldiers on the left.

When two men and what was likely a corpse stumbled back before falling down the steps, Reznik’s body turned for the last standing man, who was frantically trying to work the stuck action of his rifle.

He never got the chance to get it working again.

Reznik’s body leapt at the soldier, grabbing his shoulders and biting off his nose before hurling multiple blows down onto the open wound. The soldier went limp - though from shock or simply the repeated punches to the face, Reznik wasn’t sure.

Reznik’s head snapped to the side at the sound of a rifle being chambered behind him.

One of the soldiers he’d sent sprawling was trying to aim at Reznik from where he laid as his counterpart worked at pushing their unconscious friend off of him.

The soldier never got the chance to pull the trigger.

Not while he was still living at least, as his head jerked to the side with most of his grey matter leaving expeditiously out the left side of the soldier’s skull.

Somewhat confused, Reznik looked for the direction of the shot and spotted over a dozen tan-uniformed soldiers spilling into the town square with weapons raised.

A-are those reinforcements?

They look like reinforcements.

They certainly don’t like Bessarbans…

To hell with it, forget the soldiers out here! Let them handle it.

We’re going inside!

Leave it! Inside! Go!

Reznik’s body turned a moment later and sprang through the shattered doorway, only to find the atrium strewn with bodies. Over a dozen Bessarban soldiers were huddled around the entrance to the dungeon that Reznik had exited from earlier, with several of their number dead or dying in pools of blood nearby.

You know what to do, friend.

Reznik jumped over a corpse of a civilian as several of the soldiers around the door separated from the group.

The first man was a large orc with a two-handed sword, which he brought up and over his head to slash down at Reznik.

Reznik’s body merely stepped to the side and let the blade cut through the air where his head had once been. Without missing a beat, it stepped in close to the orc, grabbed his shoulder, and shoved its hand just below the ribcage of its opponent.

Reznik’s body curled its hand around one of the lower ribs and wrenched back sharply, ripping a bloody section of rib from the orc’s abdomen with a sharp pop. Then, it simply shoved the jagged, broken edge of the bone into the mountain of a man’s eye.

It was at this moment that the next man in line, a human with a short sword and a round shield faltered in his steps and looked a lot less sure of himself.

Then, he dropped his weapons to the floor with a ringing clatter.

The clatter was followed by a chorus of shouts from behind Reznik. A chorus of every voice all demanding the enemy surrender and lay down their arms, that the Bessarbans’s were surrounded, that their fellows-in-arms had fled and abandoned them.

One by one, the soldiers crowding around the door to the dungeon began to throw down their weapons one by one, slowly cascading into a cacophony of surrender as each capitulation seemed to influence the man behind them to give up faster.

No! Stop!

Leave it!

They’ve surrendered, that means we can’t kill them.

Reznik forced his body to stop its advance towards the former shield-bearing man ahead of him, as the act of surrender on its face meant absolutely nothing to it.

Coming to a stop with a faltering stutter-step, Reznik waited absolutely still in the center of the hall-like atrium. Orders were still being shouted, and Reznik hoped they weren’t directed at him.

The likelihood of him convincing his body to fall to its knees and put its hand behind his head was low, at best.

The door to the dungeon cracked open a tiny fraction.

“This is Sir Botezatu, of the King’s Riverguard!” Botezatu shouted wheezily, breaking into a fit of wet-sounding rattling coughs before continuing; “Identify yourselves!”

“Dame Zarah Bukewicz of the King’s inquisition, leading a regiment of the army to bolster Carcal’s defenses! We got your message, Thomman!”

The voice hit Reznik like a lightning bolt to the psyche.

He knew it.

Remembered it.

The door to the dungeon was thrown open and a bloody bandaged, haggard-looking Botezatu stepped out into the atrium.

Blinking heavily, he looked from the soldiers, to Reznik, then behind Reznik before snorting and shaking his head.

“Uh… what is that?” Reznik heard a question on one of the soldier’s lips behind him.

“I really can’t tell under all that blood.” Another man replied in a hushed tone.

“Well, hell. Nice of you to finally show up!” Botezatu quipped as soldiers stepped around Reznik and began to secure the surrendered Bessarbans as he heard other boots climbing up the nearby stairs. “I honestly didn’t expect to make it out of this one. Do you have any healers with you? We have wounded, and our town doctor isn’t entirely up to the task.”

Botezatu gestured to a bloody corpse on the ground.

“Ah, we do.” Zarah replied as Reznik felt something tickle the back of his mind, like a feather brushing his psyche. “Bring your people out to the square, and we will care for them.”

Reznik suddenly felt uneasy.

There were far too many people around him that he didn’t want to eat.

I should try and squeeze out, at least into the square.

We really shouldn’t be here anymore.

Internally, Reznik plotted a mental course out into the town square, then into a nearby alley.

Zarah was here, and that meant that he could easily find her again.

After shoving his plan to his body, it turned around and began to shamble through the sea of soldiers, who all glanced at him, then immediately glanced away and seemed to part around him.

A look down at his hands and chest answered why.

Reznik was coated, head to toe in blood.

Enough blood that these men probably didn’t even recognize what he was.

It was a blessing.

One person clearly knew what he was, however - Zarah.

Zarah’s dark, near-black eyes focused pointedly on Reznik as he walked up to her. Her golden-brown hair was pulled back tight to her skull in an orderly bun, setting her long, pointed ears on prominent display.

Just as the last time he saw her, her grey overcoat was cinched tight around her waist by a tall belt that held a pistol, a saber, and an assortment of pouches.

Her head turned to follow him as her eyes narrowed - looking equal parts curious and hostile.

She probably was.

The last time they’d met, Reznik’s body had tried in vain to eat her, after all.

He felt the silken touch of something at the back of his mind again.

I… is that you?

Are you doing telepath things on me?

CAN YOU HEAR ME?!

Zarah blinked and pulled her head slightly back as he passed her, like he’d just shouted directly in her ear.

Perhaps he had.

Then, a sudden, brief headache overcame him - like a microcosm of the attacks she’d thrown his way in the undead lands.

As quickly as it came, the headache left and Zarah turned back to Botezatu.

Reznik didn’t catch what was said as he shambled out into the square. Here and there he could hear sporadic bouts of fighting, but it had clearly died down from when he’d entered the town initially.

Most likely, the sounds he heard were just soldiers mopping up the remaining stragglers of the Bessarban army.

I might not have saved as many as I wished, but I imagine the fight would’ve been a lot rougher if I hadn’t dealt with those mages.

We did good today, friend.

You didn’t even eat anyone you weren’t supposed to!

“Hold, you!” a man shouted before a hand gripped Reznik’s shoulder and jerked it back to face a tan-uniformed soldier. Reznik didn’t have time to stuff down his body’s instinct, and it resulted in  Reznik’s own hand clamping down on on the soldiers extended arm before pulling him in close.

Reznik barely had time to let out a mental “NO!” before he was already taking a large bite out of the soldier’s neck.

The man screamed, frantically trying to push away as a chorus of shouts sounded from around Reznik.

No!

Fuck! You idiot!

You’ve gone and pissed away everything we just did!

With the second forceful no, Reznik’s body released the unfortunate soldier, who stumbled away clutching the left side of his neck as blood poured from between his fingers. Quickly, Reznik found himself surrounded by a circle of steel.

“What the hell!?” one of the soldiers pointing a rifle at Reznik shouted.

“The fuck is that?” another questioned in a booming baritone.

“I think it’s an undead, a fuckin’ zombie or something!” a third speculated before asking; “Did the enemy have any necromancers? I didn’t see anything like that on the way in here!”

“It’s a Revenant.” Zarah informed as she pushed through the edge of the circle of soldiers that had quickly surrounded Reznik. “A powerful kind of undead. You should all stay back, as that bite is the least it can do. I think the Corporal just frightened hi-“

“A Revenant?!” a sententious, nasally voice demanded from far behind the line. “In MY barony?! I thought the entire purpose of the Riverguard was to keep the likes of them out! Kill it! Kill it NOW!”

Reznik’s heart dropped at the sudden order, just barely able to see the pudgy man dressed in finery that stood at the tops of the stairs.

“Hold,” Zarah countermanded the order and turned to the man who Reznik presumed was the Baron. “Both myself and Sir Botezatu have seen the likes of them before, if he wanted a fight, we would have more casualtie-”

“I. Don’t. Care! Kill it!”

Reznik saw Luminita step out from the atrium of the building, then around the Baron. With wide eyes, she watched him.

“Very well, Baron. On your head be this.” Zarah inhaled sharply and turned back to Reznik with a flat expression.

“Run, little Revenant. Run fast. I’m going to try and kill you, now.”

The unfamiliar voice in Reznik’s head caused him to freeze for the tiniest fraction of a second before her meaning was processed.

Go!

Go now!

Jump, leap, run like our life depends on it!

Go you lout! Into the woods!

“Fire!” Zarah shouted and made a chopping motion with her hand.

The command seemed to touch an instinctive nerve in his body, and without warning it sprang forward, vaulting over one of the soldiers head before it took off at a flat sprint, shoulder-checking several of the soldiers in its mad dash to the edge of town. His body leapt onto a roof, then into a street, before eventually exiting the town through a hole smashed into the palisade wall by a massive chunk of ice.

And it was going so well…

We should stop by the mages we killed and snack up a bit.

I think we got shot a couple of times on our way out.

I know how hungry you get after getting shot.