The Reaper 

A burnished dawn broke on that fourth day, and still, the groaning of the undead continued without cease. Warden Renard looked down over the throng from his position in the tower and then to his Crusader brethren waking just inside the barricaded gate below. Many times, they had waited out the passing of a horde of zombies, the walls of their keep enough for the dead to break upon and find interest elsewhere so long as the defenders kept silent. Something had shifted in what remained of the world, though, and this pack of wretched damned seemed certain to know that a prize of flesh lay just inside the bulwark. The time was coming when the crew would have to do something to allay the siege, probably something suicidal. 

Each day brought new staggering corpses to join the throng, but still, Renard’s resolve faltered a bit as he saw a half troop of dead French footmen in tarnished mail come out of the hills. It took a moment to place his unease, but then true fear grasped him. They carried spears, and there was one among them with an actual glow in his eye sockets!
He rushed down the rickety stairs of the tower. Perhaps their Mystic, Amara, had found something in her precious Liber Salvos that could alter the course of the impending tragedy. What scraps she had of that book had saved them all before. He stepped into the courtyard and began to signal frantically for the others to join him. “A new doom is upon us, I fear,” he harshly whispered, “A troop has come that bears arms and purpose, it seems! These can think, I tell you!”

“Not possible,” rejoined Artest.

“Such a thing has never been,” added his brother Arnaud.

“Nothing about these last few days has been as before,” Renard continued in his desperate whispers. “Never have they stayed so long. Never have they concentrated on the gate. And what of the screamers two nights ago? There is something more, I tell you. One of the armored wretches I speak of had a blood-red glow in his dead eyes!”

“The screamers,” offered Amara, “are known as howlers. They should not have come, for they are blind in both eyes and scent.” She patted the bundle of papers in her lap. “You would have to stumble upon one for it to notice you and scream thus.”

“Then why did they—” Renard started.

“The glowskull you speak of,” continued Amara, “I have read of in the Liber.” She searched the pages in front of her as the others looked on in a now stunned silence. Her hands came to rest, and she read aloud, “ There is one among them whose eyes glow a burning red. He is much feared, for his glare alone can steal the heart of men. He is known as the Corpselight, and his coming is dread, for he carries not only plague but plan. He is a Revenant, and his anger eternal.”

Renard rushed back to his tower even as horror washed over the faces of his companions. These stout walls would count for nothing if the four of them had to stand off a thinking enemy. He searched the throng from his high perch but could catch no sign of the armored dead. Dread settled upon him as he realized that another change had taken place, the dead had fallen silent, and all were looking directly at him in his tower. 

He slunk back to the base of the tower and ran over their meager options in his head. “Oh, they’re thinking alright. Or guided in some fashion. I have lost sight of the Corpselight, but it is clear that these dead heed some call.” Looking to the Crusaders, he continued, “I hope you two are better with those slings than last time. Get those truncheon balls ready! Get every last stone to the top of the rampart! This night may be our last, brethren.” They all worked silently but feverishly to prepare for when the silence broke. 

And break it did, just after dusk. Only the height of the tower caught the last rays of the setting sun as an iron clang rang out and then another. An unseen hammer fell on iron again and again, and the throng began to stir and groan. There was a hideous shriek from a fleshless throat as the eyes of the Corpselight appeared from beneath the tattered thatch of one of the stone huts scattered outside the wall. He flung the iron kettle that served him for a bell towards the gate, and the horde pressed forward. 

Steeled to the fight, Renard struck his flint to his small braiser. He used it to light an oil-soaked bale and fling it into the press below. Amara and the brothers did the same. The flames served only to make the onrushing corpses below glisten in the flickering light. Renard began to loose his paltry stock of arrows into the heaving mass and then lit one for the ragged hut. The others plied their slings to good effect while the mass was thick. The hut roof leaped into flame.

The crush below pressed into the wall, and the men began to hurl down larger stones to smash the rotting skulls. Each zombie they killed fell below the mass like a stone beneath the waves. Still, they pressed. Indeed, to Renard’s horror, they began to climb upon one another and reach higher up the wall! “The balls! Light the balls!” he screamed over the groaning horde. 

Arnaud lifted a heavy, cloth-wrapped ball full of protruding blades to the top of the wall. He grasped the chain that held it firmly, lit it, and then cast it over the side. The flaming ball bounced and dangled above the ragged heads below. The burly man then began to swing it back and forth in an arc against the wall as he let out more chains. There was a sickening “thunk” as it found its first victim. Arnaud pulled it up a span and swung it back into its arc as Artest let his drop on the other side of the gate, and Amara flung battering stones down with fury. Still, the groaning bodies pressed and climbed.

Renard looked to his dwindling pile of arrows and their meager store of oil. While the truncheon balls found many a mark, the brothers would die of exhaustion before they could sweep this mass clear.
“Renard!” screamed Amara as she grabbed a bucket of the precious oil. She pointed to a mass of clambering zombies that was nearing the top of the wall near the corner buttress. She lugged the splattering bucket across the rampart and flung it upon them. Even as she did so, one grasped its hand on the wall top. She pulled a shining silver symbol from her robe and let out a Holy shout that rang into the valley and turned the uppermost creature to dust before her eyes. The rest became a raging bonfire as Renard’s flaming arrow found its mark. Arnaud, too, felt the pitch of battle and bellowed to an unknown god as his rage redoubled!
“By the gods, I cannot end them all, but I can end you, Glowskull!” Renard growled as he loosed arrow after arrow at the driving force of this heinous mob. Some struck, some fell, but still, the glowing sockets mocked him. Walking along the parapet, he drew back his bow again and again. “If this be my last night, creature, you at least shall never see it!” He chose the thickest arrow that remained, dipped it in the oil, and set it aflame. “This for you, Devil,” he drew back with all his might, ”to light your way to Hell!” 
Indeed, that spirited torch found its mark in the glowing socket and quenched the light of the Corpselight forevermore. With it died the purpose of the horde, which would be small work for these veterans now. Surely, the light of dawn would come again for them, and it would shine upon a new curséd verse in the Liber Salvos.

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