Chapter 6 | The Sound of Light

   Contrary to what the panicked knight had shouted, Asena found the few infected people of Orkney to be tame. The sense of threat washed away.

   They growled as they limped their way towards the three. One of the knights tried to talk to them, only to be met with more growling. They’d lost all sense of speech though, it was clear, their motor skills were not in question.

   She raised a hand to stop the two knights who had followed. "I will handle them all."

   "But–"

   "My lead. My orders."

   Asena was quick to her feet, dashing towards one of the faster undead things rushing at her. With a light step on the chest of the once-human creature, she twisted around it and held the poor thing by the base of their hair. A clean slice and the sound of bone-crushing left the thing dead for good.

   Or so she had believed.

   As she got up from it to attack the others, it clasped its hand around her ankle, keeping her firmly down with it.

   "I-I saw it!" One of the knights shouted, prompting the other creatures to head his way.

   "Next order, don't make a sound!" 

   Asena drove her knife through the wrist of her captor, then to the back of its neck. This time, she sliced it clean.

   "What was that?" She mumbled with curiosity as she headed towards her next target.

   Without a second's delay, she made work of the others, beheading them like an executioner. The heads of the undead rolled from their body. The younger of the two knights gagged as a head rolled near his feet.

   The sound of his nausea triggered a memory in Asena's mind.

   Yesterday, knights were stationed at the fountain even before the ceremony. Though people hauled completely lifeless bodies to the fountain, the knights would drive their swords to the chest. She hadn't thought much of it then, but now, she was intrigued.

   With one last undead before her, she sliced the neck and let the blood spray before her.

   "My lady, the blood!"

   But she didn't care. She watched as the person before her stumbled forward, then backward, but never falling. She watched it reattach its head as if nothing had happened.

   "What are you?" She whispered, twisting its head before ultimately separating it.

   "Burn them," she instructed.

   The knights did as she ordered, but neither knight was Ignis and resorted to flint and wood. Patience is not a personality trait; she twisted her pentagram and pressed on a carnelian gem. The pentagram glowed red for a moment before returning to its white glow. The other vambrace that hadn't been glowing until now was red.

   "Move aside."

   Directing a palm towards the largest body, a fireball roared setting the body ablaze.

   She chucked the heads to the fire, and then the bodies when the knights hesitated to make a move.

   "Either of you knows a prayer?"

   "Yes!" The younger one raised a hand.

   "Say one then."

   The knight nodded and kneeled beside the fire.

   "The seed is buried and man grows. The seed is cast to the skies and man grows. The seed is set afloat and man grows. The seed is burned and man still grows. The body disappears, but the light remains to once again be molded into a seed. Here we lay one part, and here you leave to become one."

   The knight lit a small fire on a leaf and buried it into the ground.

   "You don't happen to have water with you?"

   The other knight nodded. For a second, one of his eyes glistened as water trickled from his hand.

   "May you hear the light that calls for you."

   The knight bowed his head in reverie.

   That had been last night's prayer, she remembered.

   "Do you not know any other prayer?"

   "That is the official Damyanov prayer, my lady. For cremation purposes. And also! It's the prayer the ducal family recites for their own."

   "I see."

   The knights raised to their feet and watched the fire crackle as it took the bodies with it.