Agnes Excidere

''"Agnes Excidere" is a narrative written by Remington Dalson on her experiences before and after the Plague's outbreak in the Western Plaguelands. It is told from the first person perspective. As more texts are completed, they will be added here.''

=Synopsis=

Agnes Excidere is a rather unassuming book, clad in leather and bound by a single strap. Its pages are very thin and the writing within it very legible although somewhat frantic. Despite the fact that it seems to be rather nondescript, though, trapped within the book is a definitive recollection of the horrors and tribulations that resulted from the Scourge's emergence. It is hardly considered light reading, and delves into depravity and the haunting reality of one's mortality several times. After reading the book, it might be easy to see how one might lose faith in not only the Light, but also his or herself.

=I= ''I was not afraid. I was terrified.''

The din of combat had become something of a mainstay within our minds; it was as natural as rain, and as expected as the Sun’s rising. What sleep that I could capture was punctuated with the sounds of ghoulish cries and iron being rent beneath the mangled claws of men and women we once knew and loved. Each time that a militiaman cried out, I feared that this would be it, and soon the Scourge would break through our defensive barriers and devour us all. Each breath I took, tainted with the foul stench of death and carnage, promised to be my last. We survivors, we lost souls trapped within what seemed like the last shred of humanity in an ever-expanding world of darkness, could do little more than await our untimely ends.

In the first night of fighting, several men of the militia had been injured. I was initially assigned to keep them company and tend their wounds, but when I began to notice the same symptoms upon them that I saw on my father, my mother, and the other members of my family I knew that it was too late to save them. Allow me to explain that I didn’t know what it meant to be “too late to save them”, but I knew that it simply could not be done. The gruesome reality of what action need be taken when faced with my prognosis was soon realized, though, when Captain Phillips had each of the afflicted men set ablaze. Those brave, gallant men who could have fled for their own lives were set to the torch one after the other; the stench released enough to roil the stomach and sour the tongue. Oh, that stench, how I remember it well. Those that hadn’t soiled themselves in outright fear were given to vomiting from a mixture of disgust, hopelessness, and revulsion. All of these competing odors of fright, when mixed with the smell of human flesh and hair burning, were enough to make me wish that death would descend upon me and free me of our pitiful lot.

To this day I still feel pangs of guilt that I could not help those brave men who gave their lives to protect us, but I know that there was nothing I could have done.

They were lost.

But weren’t we all, I had to wonder? True we had erected shoddy palisades and barricaded ourselves off from the onslaught that threatened to overtake us, but we were doing little more than stalling the inevitable. Each time that the Scourge engaged us, another man or women was dragged screaming off into the night. Each time that we heard the dry, rattling cry of one of those despicable monsters, our souls shattered and our hearts clenched; fear ran down the legs of many or stained the cheeks of others. Each time that Captain Phillip’s shrill whistle called out over the gathered defenders, we held our breath and waited to see if this would be the time, that inevitable time, in which our mortal coils were forever lost.

There was no glory in our hold out – no grandiose moment in which we; painted as veritable gods and goddesses, arose from the pits of our despair and emerged triumphant over evil. We were scared children, townsfolk, mothers, and fathers. We were bakers, maids, carpenters, and farmers. We were wives, husbands, sons, and daughters. We were alone.

We were so very alone.

I’ve often heard people mention that “it is better to stand together than die alone”, but I have never seen an incident in where the two are not simply different stages in the same sequence. Although we were all standing together, we were all alone in our own worlds of fear and desperation. In fact, the only unity we knew at any moment was when Captain Phillip’s strident whistle sounded over the chaotic clamor of fighting, and for a moment our minds collectively joined as one to heed his call.

"Ready yourselves!" Captain Phillips called in his baritone voice; a voice that had sung in fairs in times past; a voice that had chased meddlesome children away from his farm when they were lofting about in his melon patch; a voice that now quaked the earth and silenced the heavens with its commanding presence. Of the many men that had left for Prince Arthas’ campaign, Captain Phillips was the most distinguished to remain. In times past the children of our farmsteads had ridiculed him for his strict mannerism and attempts at maintaining protocol, but when malingerers such as my father signed up to “spend a weekend with the boys” as he so aptly put it, it was obvious that Captain Phillips could only work with so much. The militiamen that had fought in the initial outbreak of the Plague – those that had given their lives for us to escape, were the ones that had trained and drilled for combat. Truly, if men such as they stood no chance against the Scourge, what could we do?

I fit my shield securely against my arm. My “shield”, which was actually a piece of iron folded and heated over a thick chunk of wood, was joined in a row with the others present. We were to line ourselves in the gaps that were presented by the palisades, and brace for impact. Behind us, men and women with pitchforks were prepared to take advantage of our openings on the call of the whistle, and impale whatever ghouls they could. In shifts we worked this way, shield and polearm, throughout the day. In my right hand I tightly gripped the hilt of a rusty and battered blade; caked with decaying flesh and blood. My nerves were frayed, and my hand shook slightly in a manner that caused the sword to rattle against its hilt. Each of us could claim no more than three hours of sleep before the next shift began, usually that of the polearm, and then the shield shortly after. In such a state of unrest, with the world so bleak and dreary, you can see why it is that so many were willing to simply surrender their lives.

The whistle sounded. I instinctively lifted my shield and closed my eyes. I did not need to see what was going to happen to know what it was; the stench of encroaching death was more than vivid enough for my mind to see. I slid my foot sideways and locked my legs slightly; not so much as to be unrelenting against the initial blow (for in doing so I’d easily be knocked over), but enough to offer staunch resistance when the time came. My forearm was already badly bruised and I am certain fractured in several places, but that was of no matter. When the whistle sounded we acted, and when we acted we did so with a single, unifying concept in mind:

Survival.

I would have given anything in the world if my brother could have returned at that moment. If Bryson could have simply walked across the threshold and bore the burden of this shield for me, it would have been a sign that the Light truly had not abandoned us. I closed my eyes and I prayed; I said every word of prayer I had ever encountered, and wished with all of my heart for our saviors to return, or for the strength and constitution to see this nightmare through to its end.

But I felt neither braver nor stronger. I was not filled with the clarity of knowing that the Light was with me; the darkness did not open and reveal to me a fountain of hope to save us from our pitiful fates. No, the only thing that appeared before us was the rolling groans of those undead fiends, like a palpable wave of malcontent, as they progressed on us in their rabid pack. The only thing that would hold my shield for me was my own desire to remain standing at the end of combat. The saviors that we had were ourselves.

The whistle sounded.

The first blow was always the one that foretold what would happen in the following moments. As I clenched my teeth and bore under the unyielding strain of the ghoul attempting to pass through me, I grunted in defiance and pushed back into him. It struck fiercely against my shield with one of its elongated hands; iron stripped from my shield under the ravening strike that it delivered. I held still against it as it struck again, and then opened my eyes and looked toward the ground. As it drew closer, I waited until the creature’s fatty leg was near me, and then dispatched a single slash from my sword. To say “slash” implies an elegance that I am sure I did not have at the time with weaponry; I should say, I hacked at the leg and it yielded unto me as a lover long absent its love. No resistance – no hesitation. The creature howled its discontent and staggered backward just as Captain Phillip’s whistle sounded. I pulled backward and allowed my spearman to rush forward and impale the beast. In that moment I was able to see my enemy, and I was reminded of why I closed my eyes in the first place.

“Beast”, “monster”, “fiend” – these words were all convenient methods to forget the undeniable fact that the creatures that attacked us; the abominations that sought to end our lives, were in fact people that we knew… people that we had once shared drinks with, told that we loved, or simply seen in passing on the way to town. These were people that had once been as human as we were and now simply had the misfortune of revealing to us what we would surely become. I had never seen the creature as a human I was sure, but that did not mean I did not feel my heart clench as I realized that it could have been my father or mother. As the pitchfork struck against the ghoul, it released a pitiful shriek and grabbed hold of the pitchfork in an attempt to pull its assailant forward. My reverie was broken. I had to act.

I placed myself between the man being dragged forward and the ghoul. Its support may have been weakened by my attack on its leg, but it still seemed capable of accessing some level of strength that we living men and women simply did not know. My shield bore instantly against its chest with enough impact to compress the decayed flesh there in such a manner that a gust of putrid bile escaped its mouth and careened past me into the face of my spearman. I heard his cry, but knew that if I turned to assist him we would both surely be lost. Instead, I lowered my shield and delivered a succinct thrust of my rattling sword into the zombie’s chest. It fell backward once more and struck the ground within any attempt at rising again. My shield was once more lifted, and my sword put at the ready. No sooner had I prepared for the next attack than did I hear my spearman being dragged away. I knew what it meant; I knew what happened when a person was introduced to the Plague. He begged, he pleaded. He swore that he had not be infected, but it was too late.

It was too late to save him.

What had his name been? Robert? Rowen? Ralph? I couldn’t recall, and I sorrowfully realized that it simply did not matter. He would be replaced and if not, then eventually I would be meeting with him in the afterlife. The whistle cried once more, and as I pulled away I saw a new person had taken his place; a boy no older than twelve, with straw blonde hair and freckles that stood out against the grime on his face. After he had effectively thrust at the ghoul, I closed ranks and once more defended against the enemy.

It didn’t matter who died or when; it didn’t matter how many of the enemy we killed or how many of us perished with each skirmish. The Light was not there for us in that dark hour, nor would it ever be. All that mattered was that my shield joined with the shield of the man next to me, and that his joined with the one next to him. All that mattered was that we defended until we could no longer defend. And when we could no longer defend, then nothing mattered at all. For that would be the end of us all.

And in the end, all that really mattered, was the end.