“Well boys, I guess that means we’ll just have to run them down before they can catch us!” With a shout, he signaled the knights nearest to him. The group charged ahead towards the blight over Keld’s strained objections.

“Your grace, don’t!” The cavalry was gone before the words left his mouth, shouting and cheering. They met the blighted halfway down the hill, and overran them. The thirty or so scattered corpses went down hard, some were impaled on lances a few had their arms hacked off. The more skilled knights even managed to lop off a head or two. The King and his men paused at the top of the hill, and even Keld had to admit it was an inspiring sight. The moment quickly soured as almost all of the blighted that had been run down staggered back to their feet little worse for wear. Many had limbs bent and broken, twisted into ghastly parodies of their original form. Bones protruded from skin. Some had stumps waving in the air and a few had huge chunks of flesh ripped away from their bodies. Those who had been impaled by lances had holes in chests so large that one could see straight through them. As they got back to their feet, they staggered forward, leaving behind a trail of mangled flesh and moist entrails behind them, but their numbers had hardly been thinned. Perhaps five had gone down and not gotten back up, their skulls trampled by hooves. The cavalry charged again, slamming into the pack and knocking them to the ground as the rest of the army cheered, laughing at the staggering corpses shambling around the hill and clawing helplessly at galloping horses before they were run over again.

The King wheeled his horse around in front of Keld. The animal was panting, exhausted from the gallop. “Explain to me again why your precious Guard has had such a hard time of this for so many years?”

Keld bristled and pointed back towards the hill. “Perhaps this could serve as an explanation, your grace.” The blighted were once again staggering up. Two charges that would have decimated an infantry line, and only ten of them were down, and they were still lurching towards the army. The King glowered at as he commanded his knights.

“Dismount and draw your steel! We face them on foot!” A dozen armored knights dismounted and charged into cluster of the blight screaming war cries as if that would somehow convince the creatures to crawl back in retreat. Keld watched an especially tall knight with red feather plopped up on his helm hack and hack at one creature’s chest again and again as if cutting lumber. Keld couldn’t help but sigh in disgust as the knight finally severed the thing from shoulder to hip only to watch it use it’s remaining hand to crawl towards him.

Keld saw a man with an axe trying to wrench the weapon free from a corpse’s chest as the blighted threw itself at him. At least half an hour had passed and only then had the dismounted cavalry plunged in enough steel to slay the wretched creatures. The King looked especially pleased with himself as he walked towards the last one with it’s jaw removed and two arms hacked off. The King raised a spear, and triumphantly thrust it through the creature’s head. He turned toward Keld bellowing, “Did you see that? That is the first line of the song that minstrels will be singing for the next century about the day the living reclaimed their home from the dead!” Keld stared at him shaking his head. The King had no idea what was waiting for him if he considered this a victory. By now, the sounds of screaming had probably alerted anything else in the area still capable of lurching towards them. If they were damned lucky, they wouldn’t be swarmed before the sun went down.