//------------------------------// // Chapter five: Cult Of The Damned // Story: The cold hand of Icecrown // by Space Wizard Novablast //------------------------------// Twilight jumped forward again, diggin her hooves into the gray dirt and tearing up the grass. The cause for her sudden shock, a stallion wearing black and green robes with a hood much like the Necromancers, was standing right behind her with the hood dragged down over his head, only allowed the tip of his muzzle to stick out. "Who are you?" Shining asked, hammer being lifted slowly off his back, "identify yourself!" The stallion didn't move, he just smacked his lips as if the current situation was just a pass by. "Are you responsible for this?" Shining growled, hammer now pointing directly at the opposer. The stallions breath started coming in stokes, as if already hyperventilating. "The population of this world shall disappear!" He almost screamed, making both siblings take a few steps back. What he said next was more controlled and less loud, "it is only a matter of time." "What.....?" The stallion for the first time stared directly at them. His hood had been thrown back, revealing scared glassy eyes that darted from left to right at alarming speed. "You have no idea what horrors are in store for you!" He almost wept, his voice carried pain and worry. "You have seen nothing yet." As he said the last words his body started to spasm uncontrollably. Bending in direction his limbs were never even supposed to. "The cold dark heart of Naxxramas awaits you." His fore hooves went up to his head, clasping around it with strength that seemed not his own. His eyes grew wide in shock and terror, and just before his hooves started to twist his neck, he muttered a few more words. "Life is meaningless." They could hear his neck crack as it was slowly twisted by his own hooves, "it is in death that we are truly worthy of our master!" Finally his hooves pulled as hard as they could, and the following snap echoed all throughout the nearby woods. The birds startled by the sudden sound, they took flight. Shining just stared at the now unmoving corpse in horror. This stallion had broken his own neck, apparently to deliver a warning, or perhaps to scare them away. He turned to Twilight, who had her head low and a pool of vomit in front of her. He couldn't blame her, he could feel the ichor rise in his throat as well. "Twilight," he breathed out to get the terrible taste of death away, but to no avail. "Where are these crates coming from?" Twilight turned her head just enough to look at the seal on the crates, a bundle of wheat was being held in the beak of a Phoenix. The official mark of...... "Andorhal..." She said, spitting out some more of her old lunch, "the crates are coming from Andorhal." "Is this Andorhal?" Shining asked, eyeing the strangely quiet houses of the town with suspicion. "No," Farwing answered, looking as concerned as Shining, if not more. "This is Brill, my hometown." "Wasn't that the town the Murloc chieftain spoke of?" Twilight asked while the gears in her head worked furiously to remind her of the chieftains exact words. "I guess geography isn't their greatest skill." Shining couldn't help but huff, in his eyes those things were abominations. No redeemable qualities and a blemish upon the world, he would report to his father of their dangerous nature, with them being so close to Brill itself. "Why is it so quiet though?" Farwing was still looking around frantically for any sign of family or friends. "It has been a few months since I've last been here, but people would either be at the inn than be asleep already." Suddenly Twilight lifted her head and so did her ears, frantically trying to lock onto the sound she had heard. "Gentlemen," she said horn flaring up and making her elemental fly from the ground next to her, "we are not alone." "I can hear it aswell," one of the guards suddenly blurted out, "it sounds like....... Chanting?" He looked at Twilight whom nodded, she had heard the same sound, and she could practically taste the magical energies. "Whomever they are they will answer some questions!" Farwing pulled his javelins from his back and clasped it firmly between his lower back and his wing. "CHARGE!" The Lietnaunt galloped ahead as fast as he could. Shining shook his head as he pulled his hammer off his back. He reared as he shouted the order, "Charge!" Yet In a much more controlled voice than Farwings, which had basically been screaming. The group sped up as they headed for the outer reaches of Brill. The sound of chanting eventually became loud enough for all to hear, even Shining could feel the strong magic in he air, it was bitter and unclean. He almost felt corrupted by it. This turned out to be yet another barn. With a few mysterious figures out the front. Some of them were wearing the same garb as the suicidal they had met earlier. Black robes with either purple or green highlights. Others yet looked normal enough, but it was a colorful ensemble. Griffins, pegasi, unicorns, even a changeling by the look of it. And the sorcerer. He was standing right there, robe, beard and everything. He was speaking with some of the darker clad ones, but his attention was quickly turned from them to the guards. "We have been discovered brothers, flee quickly, they must not interfere with the masters plan." The dark clad ponies started running as fast as they could toward the northern gate. The sorcerer however, stopped dead in his tracks after he'd taken a few steps. "I am sorry that I cannot accommodate you but, duty calls." His hood fell back to reveal a broken horn. What looked to be magical energies flowed out of his horn and entered the barracks, making something within it shake violently. The sorcerer ran to his comrades, fearing his masters wrath more than death. "Me smash!" Shining could hear something bellow. The ponies and others Shining had noticed before turned out to be not so normal at all. Some of them had either limbs or flesh missing, others were clearly rotten. Undead. Soon the door of the barn started shaking violently, soon a single hoof broke through it. Or rather a claw. The door was torn off its hinges, revealing a monstrosity waddling out. It looked to be stitched together from different creatures, with the string that held it together still completely visible. The legs of the thing looked to be those of an earth pony. It had griffin claws as functioning arms, in which hands it held a meat cleaver and an over-sized sickle. The head was that of a dragon. If this necromancer was anything, he was creative. Even more disturbing was the huge hole in its stomach that left its guts completely visible. "By all that is good," Shining heard a guard whisper behind him. He himself couldn't help but quickly draw the celestial symbol in the air. A circle with a single line through it. "Rotten meat!" It yelled at them, it's maw opened disgustingly wide revealing slowly rotting teeth. It started running as best it could on with its pudgy legs. It might have looked entertaining had it not been its desire to kill them. It's smaller more 'normal' friends proved to be both smarter and faster as they charged directly forward towards the guards and their commanders, howling like hurt wolves. "To arms brethren!" Shining yelled, own battle hammer ready as an undead unicorn attempted to spear him. He neatly stepped to the side and swung the hammer, cracking the skull of his oncommer completely. "Let none of them stand!" The guards themselves charged forward to meet the encroaching horde. Javelins at the ready. Shining couldn't help but smile as the vast majority of the undead were speared upon the soldiers weapons. But the idyllic nature didn't last. The giant, which Shining had dubbed 'flesh golem' were busily tearing his way through their rank, smacking guards aside with the flat of his cleaver as easily as swatting a fly. He kept on yelling in sentences of no more than two words, whatever brain they had given the thing it wasn't one that had belonged to a smart pony. A second or so later after thinking such thought, shining bore witness to the thing opening it's mouth and spewing some strange green liquid at the phalanx. Some dodged it, others could only scream as their armor, flesh, and mane melted away. "Farwing, overhead spearing!" Shining yelled, his Lietnaunt got the message as he flapped his wings and flew directly towards the clouds. Eventually he was about 90 feet above the giant, who had noticed nothing as he kept on laughing and smacking the guards about. He clasped his spear between his forelegs and plummeted towards the ground, holding the weapon as far from himself as he could. The giant looked up as he heard a strange whistling noise. Bad idea. The spear went directly into the throat of the abomination. Going through his head and eventually going out where the Adam's apple would be. The flesh giant choked for a little while before falling over with a sickening thud. "Well done Farwing!" Shining lifted his hammer high as his friend landed with tired gasps beside the giant. "It was nothing," he got out through huffs of air. "Any pegasus could have done it." "It's not that I want to ruin the celebrations guys." Twilight said, looking worriedly towards north, "but I can see smoke rise in the distance." Shining turned to where she was looking, and sure enough, in the direction of Andorhal smoke was rising. "they're burning the city...."