The smoke swirled over the battle ground tendrils slithering and choking all with the smell of burning dead. Fighting how long had it lasted, Rasticar realised he couldn’t remember, was it days or years the corpses were piled high bleached bones rotting corpses fresh dead all jumbled in a horrific macabre whole. Sniffing the air something was different the cries still echoed the clash of swords the crunching of bones the slow squelching of corpses settling in the mud. Then it came to him why was he fighting there were no sides no reasons just fighting. He slumped forward and rested, for the first time in centuries he believed he slept.

With a slow moan Rasticar's senses awoke no pain no real form just an awakening the field was green and bare yet he recognised landmarks the days that had been fought here the comrades who had fallen swords in hands. Then a hunger hit him burning ravaging intense travelling fast he slaughtered a Goat cramming the sweet raw flesh into his dribbling jowls it cut the edge off the hunger but didn’t sate it. He drifted to a pool and gazed at the murky reflection, gone was the Handsome dashing warrior in its place a Twisted bent creature skin flaking from his cheek an eye hardly attached, limbs once strong and supple showing muscles and veins through paper thin skin bruised and pustulated festering in places, he felt no sense of horror only a vague need to regain his own mortality and proper death. He looked at himself again noting that one of his fingers was missing perhaps taken by some passing scavenger.

Adurant the Necromancer Hammered and cursed at the metal as it sizzled muttering arcane words of binding forming the holder for the unholy relic, the power of this weapon would win the fight for them turn back the forces of those who called them barbaric those who wished the Redica Citadel to fall and crumble to dust. Rasticar’s Finger bone long had he searched for it long had he studied and it had come to him in the grasp of an Innocent worn around her neck as charm. A charm so strange it had done nothing when he had taken it from her and thrown her to the lower denizens of the Citadel to feast on or do as they chose.

He looked to Shadec the shuffling undead who served as many served him as he carried and bought more ingredients for the making of the weapon a name for it he must name it but what. The name drifted into his twisted mind like a long

Forgotten lullaby, "Vertona" slayer of the living protector of the dead, He worked now with growing excitement growing anticipation his masterpiece would soon be completed. Shadec shambled back to his area of the citadel back to his sweet love Oberline cast into the depths to die he had taken her under his protection and kept her safe and she in turn and been kind to him, talking of things beyond the dark damp halls in which they existed. also she had told him how she had found the finger bone in a field near the village it had glowed with a strange sickly green light but when she had picked it up it had glowed and sparkled she had not wanted to part with it.

The villagers gathered in Horror Marbel had died in the night a fresh corpse would bring the necromancers from the citadel to take her for experiments and perhaps she would return in a few days to kill them in their beds mass panic gripped them like a fever. Those who had loved her wishing her to be safely and decently interred, yet knowing her grave would probable end up like so many others looted and desecrated, their loved ones corpse removed. The aged priest Braenal conducted the ceremony they buried her in a wooded glade away from the normal burial grounds perhaps this would keep her safe. They prayed and mourned her loss but behind it was a need to be away from the grave as soon as possible. Late that night Braenal slipped from his bed to the pigeon loft and sent a message to the Citadel with precise instructions to where the corpse lay unblessed.

Rasticar eased the skin from the corpse; sliding it from the cold flesh removing pieces as large as possible, he used it to seal the worst of the holes in his own flaking flesh. He left the skinned corpse laying under the tree's its dull eyes gazing up at the perfect night sky. They arrived soon after from the citadel black hoods and silence, they were puzzled at the sight that met them the corpse lying out and not a trace of skin left, they wrapped it and carried it back for examination. They talked in

Hushed tones glancing at the corpse occasionally no ordinary beast had done this then what lurked outside the walls. A Groan escaped from the corpse a hoarse gasping prophecy of doom issued from it “The weapon will look like salvation but it will be your downfall” the corpse then settled back and became just flesh and bone.