106 The Order of Kirof

Except for those that were still fighting, everyone stared at the closed gates, to see who will pass them. The sun was quite not yet visible, but the sky was turning more and bluer and it was not that hard anymore to spot the zombies rushing at the living. Of course, it did provoke fear and panic prior to the sound of the horn, when people realized how bad looking were the injured. In the cover of the night, it was hard to discern the injuries behind the heavy armor.

But even if the zombies were more frightening than the skeletons, their number was far lower. This allowed the few survivors from the garrison to incapacitate more than kill them. And with the arrival of the reinforcements, they were only using numerous obstacles gathered in the surrounding houses to form barricades here and there. Since the zombies were even clumsier than the skeletons, this resulted in temporary success, at the cost of the furniture that was getting destroyed.

TULU TULUMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

The sound of the horn resonated once more, albeit far more closely than before. The gates were slowly opening, and the soldiers that were on top of the ramparts were shouting in joy after discovering who was coming to help them. Some people that were familiar with that sound finally remembered where they heard it, sharing the extremely good news to their neighbors. So when the citizens first saw the skull helmet worn by their saviors, they only felt relief and not fear.

The mighty riders didn't stop at all, a passage already formed in the huge crowd to let them through. In a blink of an eye, ten or so knights charged forward, agilely controlling their mount to not harm the innocents nearby. It was not that hard since the way was large enough for two horses to walk side by side, by for the previously desperate inhabitants of Archet, it was like they were Heroes.

The frontline had been pushed back repeatedly so many times that the incoming knights barely had to ride for less than 30 seconds before reaching it. With the usual traffic and the size of the city, it would have taken nearly 5 minutes to reach the eastern gates from the West, even with a horse. This was also proof that if the local guards had to fight by themselves till the end, they would have perished not long after dawn.

Everyone cleared the path for them, whether it was civilians or fighters, but the group split up in five duos. Each heading to different directions, to deal with the undead in multiple locations at the same time. This could have appeared to be presumptuous, to only change the tide of battle with only two riders, but Davion and Meridiana had already proven it was possible. And the moment the exhausted warriors saw them in action, they felt that the comparison was quite accurate.

Like vicious animals, the knights launched themselves in the fray, hacking down any undead in the range of their weapons. Most used a greatsword that should have been handled with two hands accompanied with a massive shield. Only one was even more reckless, dismissing the great shield for a short sword. Nonetheless, both weapons were used only offensively, the weight of the shield used to crush the frail limbs of the undead.

Some guards couldn't help but have goosebumps, and if they hadn't known they were here to help, they would have thought the knights were madmen, not caring at all for their lives. But the result spoke for themselves, in the few minutes following their arrival, the different groups of strangers had pushed back the undead farther than where they were before Seron died. The only moment they momentarily paused their assault was when they arrived at the destroyed City Hall and had to be careful near the hole on the ground.

Looking at this, Malakov was a bit shocked, for it seemed that those knights had infinite stamina. Only beings that would never tire or rarely would act at their full potential all the time. So either the way they fought were not even the maximum they could accomplish, which would be extremely bad for them, or they were lunatics. They had heard of their reputation and the stories surrounding them, but it was always rumored and they hadn't killed anyone that directly saw them fighting with their own eyes.

But if anyone asked in the human nations or even beyond that who they should call to fight an undead army, it would be those knights. The Order of Kirof. The fallen knights, the former Eagles of Parkow. The only surviving entity of the previous human kingdom. They dismissed their helmet shaped like the head of an eagle to wear those skulls, symbolizing their origin.

In truth, their story was a bit pathetic. The moment one of the Dark God unleashed that spell, turning the entire country into a land for the dead, they were fighting another one near the mountains. They had helped the trolls and their Hero, Târlakh, only to come back and see their own country devasted. The thousands of men and women could only lament, knowing that they hadn't protected their families, their friends, their cities.

Following the fall of Pankow, the numerous refugees entered the neighboring countries and adapted themselves to the local life. But that was because they were not the most elite troops of that said kingdom. The sovereigns of that time were extremely reluctant at sheltering those knights, who acted like one group. They didn't deny the fact those loyal souls were to be praised for their actions in the Age of Darkness, but after the Calamity ended, the purpose of the Order of Kirof was a thorn in their side.

Because of this, the first years were extremely rough for the knights. They had to give up their weapons, their armors, their brothers and sisters. Some enjoyed the sudden peace and truly converted themselves to the life of a civilian. Others joined the Adventurer Guild or entered the battle as mercenaries. Seeing the ancient heritage and culture of the Order being slowly destroyed, the former officers were desperate. Until, a movement was seen from Pankow, a large force of undead heading toward the Republic of Avenio.

Because it was shortly after declaring its own independence, the army was stretched out between the North, frontier with the Synnada Empire, and the South from where the undead were coming. Lacking men, experienced fighters, they were on the brink of losing and allowing the dead to roam inside Avenio. It was at that time that the Order forged a pact with the high council of the republic.

The latter will guarantee that they will not influence in any way the Order of Kirof. For this, the knights will fight for them any time an undead was spotted, for free. This point was the ultimate concessions of the former officers, and this was what made the aristocrats and merchants accept the deal.

In the following years, multiple fortified hamlets appeared not only in Avenio but also in Genablum and Massalia. Most descendants of the knights of that time are part of the Order, and whenever someone had to deal with the undead, they are ready to fight them. Of course, for the common eyes, they are doing that for free, true heroes worthy of the immense sympathy many commoners have for them. Behind the scenes, most nobles in charge of the area where the Order was called still had to pay them for their services. It was always a gift or repairing their equipment with their own funds, minor dealings like that. Otherwise, the Order would have run out of weapons in a few years.

No one was really angry about that. For them, it was always much cheaper to call the knights of Kirof for help than dealing with greedy adventurers. The only problem was the fact that even if each knight was extremely powerful, capable of holding their ground against the elites of each nation, they were not a lot. More or less 1 thousand, in 3 different nations and even some often roamed inside the realms of the dwarves and the elves. So, it was not uncommon to not be able to ask for their help if the problem was urgent.

Because of this, it seemed like a miracle for ten knights to be present near Archet when such a grave crisis happened. But those ten were clearly capable of killing every undead Malakov still had in reserve. Even the lich will fall under their swords because they were trained from their childhood to kill undead. Because of this, the Envoy of Leilade had mixed feelings. He was reluctant at letting the last lich die so easily since it will make Davion and Meridiana look a bit worse. But he had to kill it without the intervention of the other two, he had planned to make it fight the adventurers till the end and died while taking dozens with it.

After pondering for a few seconds, he guessed that it was time for him to leave it to fate. Releasing his control over the army of undead, he returned to his true form and waited for the news. As for the ghouls that were encircling Archet, he had them attack the walls. When he first heard the sound of the horn, he immediately ordered them to not attack, since it would be pointless. But now, he only wanted to get rid of everything, just forbidding them to harm the human Meridiana choose.

The moment a part of his soul left the weak skeleton, the lich that was nearby sighed in relief. She had seen her companion controlled only to be crushed by those two monsters. Even if she hated him, even when she doesn't understand why she still was terrified to be so powerless. She tried to levitate toward the North-West, her home. Or at least, she felt it was her home, somewhere with a lot of trees. In her mind, trees were good, it made life happier, but now she was dead, so she wondered if it made death happier too?

But after being 3 meters away from the ground, she felt stuck. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't get higher than that. It was illogical, since before she could bypass the ramparts entirely, and they were taller than that. Trying a few more times, she resigned herself and tried to leave the city. But when she was above the walls, an invisible wall prevented her from even having a finger outside.

Even if she wasn't a genius, she could easily understand what was preventing her from leaving. Feeling panic when noticing the two ferocious knights that were approaching her, she tried to argue and plead her cause. "Foolish mortals; prepare to die!" She hastily put her bony hands in front of her mouth. She hadn't meant to say that.

"Succumb to my power worms!" "Bow before your death!" "This city will fall by my hand!"

In quick successions, she tried to beg for mercy but only spoke those cruel words. Even when she tried to do some hand gestures to signal anything to those warriors, she couldn't do it. For some reasons, she found those knights familiar, or at least, she knew about them. Instinctively, she executed a quick movement from her right hand, making the knights paused for a moment.

But the backlash from defying the order of the one who created her was horrible. She felt like thousands of needles were piercing her entire body, but couldn't even scream at all. Seeing the lich being immobile, even if they had their doubts, the knights still jumped on the occasion.

Her rotten face and her lifeless orbits would never be able to share what she was feeling, when that greatsword pierced her chest, shattering her core. She could only grab the sword and knock it twice with her little finger and one with her middle finger before her very soul was destroyed.

This caused the remaining undead to crumble, but also the two knights to be extremely pensive about the situation. The two signs they saw where two different means of conveying the same issue. The first was from their own Order, signifying a trap while the other was from the White Hand meaning that an ambush was prepared. A lich shouldn't know that, and it hadn't even tried to attack them.

Because they feel perplexed, they inspected the body multiple times, even dismembered it to see if it was an illusion. As for the undead core, they gathered the fragments and will destroy them this night, but after understanding everything. Even if they were doubtful, their main priority was to annihilate all possibilities of revival. The cleaning of the city was quick after that, and the bodies of the other lich and the ghouls in the east were salvaged. Their cores were all reduced to mere dust, but the other knights were doubtful about the strange lich.

Not even talking about whether it was a ploy to have them not destroy the core, the body of the other lich was in a weird state. It had been partially blasted by the explosion of the bomb, but it had been beheaded with a strange weapon. Maybe a hammer or something, the cut on the neck was not clean at all and it was the only visible sign of a fight. This meant that whoever killed it was in just one hit. It was not that common, but because they had no idea how old those liches were for the moment, that was just a casual reflexion.

After all of this, they returned to the eastern part of Archet, only to hear that a group of undead had attacked. They were surprised since they had not seen anything while riding to help, but they could only return as quickly as possible. It would be a shame for them if they managed to kill a lich, only for innocents to die because of other monsters that they didn't know about.