After the hearty breakfast, a long farewell and a relatively brief stint of quiet grassland travel, it became apparent that things were not exactly normal. Wurzag glanced over his shoulder, down the hillside they had so recently ascended and quickly spied the trio of slow moving but inexorable figures as they shambled along in their wake. He and Taryn were up wind from the creatures so he could not smell them yet but they were only a half mile distant so it would not be long. He inhaled deeply and shrugged the heavy pack from his shoulders.

"We ain't gonna out run dese fellas," he muttered to Taryn, "we is faster den dem but dey ain't gotta sleep or rest or nuffin an I reckon dey can smells dat blood on ya a mile away."

The decaying monstrosities stumbled closer, their jerky, irregular movements somewhat disturbing and wholly unnatural. The pair had been forced to pause in their journey three times over the last four days to deal with small but persistent numbers of undead that seemed drawn to their position from all over the plains. Thus far it had not been anything the duo could not handle, anything Taryn did not burn Wurzag cut up, but it was abundantly clear that something didn't want them to reach Do'riba and that something was almost certainly the lich lord.

The threat may have been minimal now, but in a couple of days they would reach the edges of the land of the dead and what could very easily be a great deal of trouble. Blood loss was making the young mage weak and though the half-orc had every confidence in his friend the man needed to conserve his energy for the trials to come. If they fought long and hard to reach Taryn's nemesis only to have the young man faint from exhaustion Wurzag didn't rate their chances. Still, a small chance of success and near certainty of death had never slowed him down before.

"Right den," he rumbled, "me an Froat can take dese fellas, yooz take a breaver an check dat fuggin bandage, yer leakin' again." An unspoken command brought the lupine over the brow of the hill from wherever it had been lurking and it ambled up to stand beside the green-skin. Wurzag pulled his sword from its scabbard and planted the point in the earth. Then gave a long sigh and waited for the enemy to arrive.

The half-orc had fought a great many things throughout his life, some of which crumpled under the first blow and provided an excellent meal and others which stubbornly refused to die. Undead tended toward the latter, their grip on their unlife was as tenacious as a ferret and, to make matters worse, you couldn't eat them once you did finally get them to stay still. He had tried once and had spent three days unable to keep anything but water down and even more green than usual.

The three shambling figures closed the distance a little.

"Yez know," the half-orc said conversationally, "des undead fings would be a load worse if dey cud run or akshully move faster den a dead goat." He shrugged, "but den dey is dead I spose, I reckon I'll be doin well to be movin' dat quick after I'm dead." The thought was more than a little morbid given their destination and ultimate objective.

"Not dat I fink dat will 'appen fer ages," he hastily added.

"I can help." Taryn was all for helping Wurzag and Froat chase down their - for want of a better word - pursuers, but the half-orc was right. He was indeed leaking again. "Alright, then," he said, reluctantly, "but if you think you need me, just holler, alright?"

He had not anticipated just how draining the Mark would be. He had read about such wounds, of course - his long-ago research into the works of Aneuryn and Suraklin had mentioned such methods used by the undead to slow their enemies. He knew that he could not technically die from the continual blood loss, that was not the Mark's purpose. But still it left him feeling weak and faint.

Which he hated.

Taryn had demonstrated extreme physical willpower in the matter, pushing himself as hard as he dared in order to make good time. It had been something of a double-edged sword, however. For every mile they covered, Taryn grew weaker and paler and needed to rest more frequently.

So far, it had not really affected his ability to join Wurzag in fighting the undead that were attracted to their location and he had successfully performed some pretty powerful fire magics, every successive unleashing of flame proving both easier and stronger than the previous.

He sat down and removed his shirt and the blood-soaked bandage that wrapped around his chest. His supply was running short now and he'd had to make do with washing some of the soiled bandages in a river they had passed a few miles back. It was one of these he now drew from his pack and wrapped as tightly as he could around his chest. It would be soaked through again within the hour, no doubt, but it offered some relief from the constant sense of oozing.

From somewhere over his right shoulder he could hear the sound of undead dismemberment.

It was a very distinctive sound. He was starting to get too used to it.

He closed his eyes, sighed, and pulled his shirt back on.

Amidst the sound of gurgles and moans and growls and howls and the occasional sort of 'splut' noise of blade against dead flesh, he ate some bread and drank some water.

"My life," he murmured, "is getting increasingly surreal."

Wurzag watched as the young man retreated to what could be considered a safe distance and then turned his attention to the important business of the approaching zombies. Froat stood beside him, limbs relaxed and gaze slightly unfocused as if it didn't have a care in the world. The half-orc wondered what went on inside its lupine skull at times when normal, flesh and blood creatures were preparing to fight for their lives. It always seemed remarkably unconcerned. "Oi!" He grumbled to the familair, "pay attenshun, der is ded fings comin'!" He huffed impatiently and watched as the monsters covered the last few metres.

"Get 'em!" Wurzag finally yelled and the pair sprang into action.

The undead were slow to react, still intent on their marked target, but they were also aware enough to defend themselves. Decaying flesh and mouldering bones provided scant protection against steel and claws however and it was not long before the trio had been effectively stalled in their advance. Wurzag stepped in front of the lead zombie, skewered it through the mouth and the point of his sword exited from the back of the creature's skull in a spray of gristle and ichor. It hung there for a moment, suspended on the shaft of steel before jerking back in to motion again. With horrifying, inexorable slowness it pulled itself down the blade toward the exasperated half-orc.

"Stoopid fuggin fings!" He growled in annoyance and wrenched the weapon free through the side of the monster's face. The remains of its cranium flopped over in the opposite direction, still supported by a few strands of decaying muscle and still it continued to move. "Now dat just ain't right!" Wurzag grimaced. He spun on his heel and whipped the massive weapon around in an arc to complete the partial decapitation, and was rewarded with the satisfying thump of steel against bone as it bit through the target's spine. The zombie shuddered and fell to the ground but blindly continued to crawl away toward where Taryn sat.

In the meantime Froat had effectively dismembered the corpse it had assaulted and had perched itself on top of the pile of severed limbs. Despite the fact that the lupine could not express its feelings facially it managed to look smug. One of the hands continued to twitch and the familiar ripped it apart with almost casual ease. "Yeah, yeah," the green-skin grumbled, "laff it up dog boy, why dunt yez make yeself useful an give me an 'and wiv dis last one?" Froat climbed down and obediently began to stalk the remaining zombie which continued to advance, oblivious of its companion's plight.

Wurzag was more direct.

He marched up to the lurching abomination and clove its skull in two. Unfortunately the blade then stuck, lodged between the broken bones. The half-orc shook the weapon violently, the motion jerking the creature about like a macabre puppet, but it refused to come free. Green-skin and undead stared at each other down the length of the blade, momentarily at an impasse, but then Froat came to the rescue, claws and teeth efficiently tearing the thing apart from shoulder to hip. Wurzag stepped on the severed head and tugged his sword free.

The decapitated crawler had continued its slow but relentless path toward Taryn during the battle but now Wurzag returned to it and sprang on to its back. The weight of half-orc pinned the monster to the ground and the green-skin cackled gleefully as he jumped up and down on its prone form until it stopped twitching. "Froat," he called over his shoulder once his anger was spent, "come over 'ere an finish dis fing off an all, I'm goin' fer a drink." The lupine obligingly loped over and began its gruesome work.

"Yez know," Wurzag mumbled as he wandered to where Taryn sat, "why couldn't yez 'ave upset sumfing easier to kill? Like a goat? It wud 'ave made life so much betterer." He wiped the smeared gore from his weapon on the grass and seated himself beside the tired mage, "an pass dat water wud yez, dis undead killin' is thirsty work."

Mutely, Taryn handed over the waterskin, along with some of the bread and a huge chunk of farmhouse cheese. Leandra, despite not wanting to apparently let go of her brother, had at least ensured that they had travelling provisions. The young mage blinked owlishly at the half-orc as he grumbled about the undead minions that had been hounding them for days now and then rather surprisingly burst out laughing.

He laughed long and hard for several minutes, then paused to wipe tears from his eyes. The laughter felt good. It banished the darkness in his soul for a time and he welcomed its cleansing power.

"I'm sorry, Wurzag," he said, once he regained the ability to speak. "It's just I'm trying to imagine a seriously ticked-off, all-powerful goat."

Then he burst into fresh peals of laughter, laughing so hard that he actually fell off the log on which he was seated to roll helplessly on the floor, giggling like a child at the mental vision the thought had conjured up.

Clearly the strain was starting to get too much for him.

Eventually, the hilarity passed and Taryn got back up onto the log and accepted the waterskin back from Wurzag. It had done him the power of good: the tiredness he had been feeling seemed to have ebbed. He packed away the wax wrapped cheese and the waterskin and got to his feet, stretching out the knot between his shoulderblades.

"I hate to say it," he said, "but these low-level undead that we're encountering out here are as nothing compared to what we're likely to encounter once we get into Do'riba proper. I can't work out whether our best bet is going to be to fight through the graveyard to the Mausoleum, or whether we duck our heads and make a run through whatever's there so we can get straight to the 'kill Suraklin and get home for tea' part."

He sighed.

"Wow, I sound optimistic," he said, cynicism biting in his tone. He waved Suraklin's Bane around. "Just stick the pointy end in the bad guy and that's the proverbial that."

Indeed, that is what should happen in principle, in theory, on paper - but Taryn had wised up enough to know that not everything went according to plan.

He hesitated, thinking about bringing up another subject that had been bothering him, but shook his head. It would keep.

"Let's go," he said, wearily. "I've got a few more miles in me yet."

Two more days of increasingly difficult travel saw the sporadic trickle of undead attacks grow into a steady flow and finally a persistent, ongoing threat. While the young mage grew weaker through exertion and blood loss, Wurzag and Froat were forced to keep an almost constant vigil both night and day for zombies and animated skeletons that seemed to hone in on their position with unerring accuracy. The issue of rest was not so much of a problem for the sleepless lupine, but the days and, often disturbed, nights of battle were beginning to take their toll on the half-orc. Even his robust consitution could only last so long. He staggered wearily to the crest of a hill and peered down into a shallow valley that looked as though it had been blasted of life in some long ago cataclysm.

"Fuggin' 'ell," he gasped as he stared down at the desolation, "I 'ope dat is dis land ov da dead wot yooz 'ave been lookin' for, cuz I dunt know about yooz but I is knackered!" He peered back down the hill to where the young man stumbled while Froat fought a rear-guard action against a pair of skeleton warriors. The familiar was holding its own but Wurzag could see several dark specks further back down the trail moving slowly but inexorably in their direction.

"Dunt dese fings ever give up?" He groaned and waved his friend onward, "we must 'ave killed a hunerd ov 'em an still dey keeps comin! Der can't be any dead folks left in da ground!" While he waited he pulled the mostly empty canteen from his pack and took a long swig from it; there was no need to be conservative if their journey was almost over. They would be able to refill on the way back.

Wurzag did not know what to expect from the morbidly named land of the dead, but squinting into the blighted region he had certainly expected more dead people. As it was there were a great many more behind them than in front and the green-skin had a sneaking suspicion that they were, "being herded!" He finished the thought out loud. "Dat stinky git is pushin' us dis way like 'e wants us knackered afore we get der!" Wurzag growled in annoyance at the cowardice of it all, if the lich was as all powerful as it was supposed to be then it should have come out and faced them itself instead of using its minions to harass them.

"I reckon," the half-orc said with a confident but tired grin, "dat 'e is scared ov us." He looked down at the exhausted mage who had almost won his struggle against gravity. "Well, more scared of yooz, an dat mace fing right der but ye know, dunt count a fella out until 'e's down."

As if in reply to Wurzag's show of confidence a chill and decidedly foetid gust of wind drove out of the barren lands and drew a shiver from the green-skin. It felt and stank like the grave.

For his part, Taryn had all but given up the fight to keep going onwards. Increasingly he was beginning to feel terrible dread about the events that lay ahead. He wasn't afraid of his own death, not one bit. He'd more or less made himself up for the fact that the statistical likelihood of him coming out of Do'riba alive were as next to nothing as made no odds.

No, that wasn't what Taryn dreaded.

What he dreaded, was failing to defeat the lich. He dreaded what horrors could potentially be unleashed on the unsuspecting world if he didn't make that mace connect with the lich. He knew that he himself would likely head up Suraklin's undead army as a minor wraith and the thought of committing cold-blooded murder filled him with cold dread.

Of coure, the fact that he was so tired he could cry didn't help much, either.

He'd given up changing the bandages on his chest now and his shirt was filthy with an unpleasant combination of dried blood and fresh blood. It seemed that the closer they got to source, the more blood pumped out of him. Despite his weariness, fear and discomfort, the mage in Taryn couldn't help being fascinated at the ancient Mark magic. So much blood loss should have killed him within the first day. Yet here he was, walking around.

Well, struggling to walk, admittedly, but the point was there.

"I need five more minutes," he said to Wurzag, his voice strained. The young mage looked up at the half-orc and forced a wan smile onto his face. "I'm sorry, Wurzag, I really am. I didn't know it would be like this."

He slumped back down to the ground again and buried his head in his hands. After a brief moment, he looked up and his eyes were lifeless and dull, not a hint of the former sparkiness that so characterised the young man evident.

"You should go home," he said, his voice nearly as dead as his eyes. "They won't bother you. It's me they want and I can't go on any further. I haven't got the strength. Leave me here to die. Better at their hands than at those of Suraklin. It'll be quick, painless."

He'd increasingly been getting like this over the past day, dipping into a dank pool of despair that it was getting harder and harder to crawl out of. He knew, at the core, that it was part of Suraklin's magic and he had fought and fought until he was as mentally exhausted as he was physically.

It had made apparent the true reason why he'd sought companionship on this journey. So far, Wurzag had snapped him out of it, at one point even bodily picking the young mage up under one arm and carrying him onwards for a while. But he'd never sounded so...resolved about giving up as he did right now.

Wurzag looked down at his exhausted companion and sighed, "sorry fella, I reckon five more minutes an we will 'ave undeads chewin' on our ankles. Come on, we must be nearly der an I dunt wanna keep da lisssssssssh waitin', da sooner yooz smacks 'is 'ead in the sooner yez can 'ave a rest." He mopped his brow and squinted back toward the seemingly limitless flow of monsters which continued their advance unabated. The half-orc was no mathematician but he estimated that if the enemy numbers continued to grow the trio would be too tired to fight and overwhelmed in little more than a day. Wurzag fervently hoped that they could reach the crypt before dawn.

"Right den," he started, but was cut off by Taryn's outburst of pessimism. He allowed the young man to finish and then gave him a fierce grin. Then he laughed, a haggard, weary sound but jovial none-the-less. "'Ome?" The half-orc rumbled, "I dunt got an 'ome ye daft git, I ain't got nowhere to go cept over der," he gestured in the direction of the blasted valley, "to give dis undeed fing a kickin' cos it is proper gettin' on my wick!"

Wurzag squatted down so that he was level with the seated mage, "I 'ave wandered out 'ere across da plains, kicked in a bunch of fellas, got stabbed, blowed up, shot at an bit cos of dis stinkin' fing an I ain't about to let it 'ave da last laff." All trace of humour dropped from his face and with obvious effort he struggled back to his feet, "an yez can be damn sure dat yooz ain't eiver overwise yez family are gonna be da first ones to ged it! So stop mopin' around and lets ged dis fing beat!"

On previous occasions when Taryn had shown signs of flagging an energetic rant had usually been enough to cajole him in to action. This time however he seemed more thoroughly broken, as though something had finally stolen his spirit away and left him a broken shell. The half-orc growled deep in the back of his throat at the vindictive evil that continued to persecute his friend and something deep, red and angry struggled to make itself heard.

"Fine," he muttered. Then, "fine!" With more force. "yez may be fuggin' knackered an bleedin' an can't walk any more but I bloody well can!" He stooped, grabbed the exhausted mage and hauled him over his massive shoulders. "If I 'ave to carry yez to da bloody end an frow yez at dat undead git I'll see dis fing to da finish now lets GO!"

Legs wobbling with his own crushing tiredness but with a stubborn, orcish refusal to give up Wurzag started down the hillside with Taryn on his back. Froat continued to stall the growing tide of death at their rear but it would not be long before even the lupine's boundless ferocity was overwhelmed.

They were running out of time.