Chapter 454: Harbinger

Mac slowly rose to his feet, his chest heaving as he took deep, laboured breaths. The hammer, which had grown to the size of a regular single handed War Hammer with a wide skull smashing head, felt completely weightless as it rested in his hand.

Inky blackness still covered his hand, and in fact had spread to his other hand, but the creeping black veins didn’t go any further than his forearm now. Other than their colour, they had returned to normal, no longer pushing against his skin to tear themselves free. Instead they just carried the power of the Warhammer silently through his blood, mixing it and diluting it as it traversed through his body.

"A Warrior has claimed the cursed weapon," Elder Jeskal shouted to the crowd behind him, "A new Harbinger has been chosen!"

He drew a jagged bone knife from his waist, and quickly sliced it across his own palm. He clenched his fist tight, drawing out a trickle of blood as he thrust his bleeding hand into the air and let out a victorious war cry.

The crowd immediately followed. Drawing their own blood with their knives and thrusting their bleeding hands into the air as they cheered, even the children did the same.

Then they moved as one, filtering around Mac as they laid their bloody hands upon him, marking him with their crimson hand prints.

"May the power of the Ancestors flow through you. May the blood of your kin empower you." Each one muttered, as they marked him one by one. Moving away to make room for others as soon as they had left their marks.

By the time the crowd started to part, Mac was covered head to toe in red hand prints. Many of them were so close together that it was impossible to tell the difference between them, or even see a hint of green beneath the crimson.

The only gap was around the carving that Belladonna had given him, as not a single Orc - not even the Elder and especially not the Witch - dared to sully her design. Which meant that Belladonna had to do it herself.

She sliced her hand with her own shade claw and placed it directly atop her carving.

"May the power of your Ancestors flow through you, and may the blood of your kin and of mine empower you."

Mac looked down at her, his lips trembling and his eyes almost as red as his skin, as he was doing everything to hold himself together and not dissolve into a blubbering mess. Thankfully another ping of his Scrying Skull, as it received an impatient message, brought him back from the ocean of tears that was awaiting him.

"I... I need to go rest. T-thank you. Thank you all." He stammered before sniffling loudly and staggering through the crowd, with his new weapon in hand.

Belladonna laughed softly as she watched him go, before turning to the Elder.

"Do you know what dwells in the castle?"

Elder Jeskal glanced at her, stiffening up slightly, before shaking his head.

"No, Dark Lady. None of us have dared to approach it in generations. While we might fear the Undead, they also are a challenge that exists to be overcome. But what dwells in that castle... Any who have approached have died.

When we have questioned their corpses even they do not know what has killed them."

"You questioned their corpses?" Belladonna asked with a frown. Was that a translation error, and perhaps their way of talking about forensics? Or did they actually have a way of asking a corpse questions?

If someone could make a corpse walk and fight, getting it to answer a few questions shouldn’t be too hard, right?

"Yes. What killed them did not eat them. We find them tossed into the streets around the castle. It never eats anything it kills." The Elder explained, thinking that her confusion revolved around how he could get the corpses to question.

In his mind, questioning corpses was completely natural and expected. The thought that someone did not know how never even crossed his mind.

Belladonna pondered it over for a moment, before nodding and turning on her heels.

"Very well, it seems that we will have to go in blind for this one. It’s not ideal, but it won’t be the first time."

"You mean... You are still going to do it?!" The Elder stammered, staring at her like she was the one who had been infected by the Hammers madness.

"Of course." Belladonna laughed, giving him a sly smirk. "Do you really think that because I cannot see something, means that I cannot kill it?"

She laughed again, turning away with the flick of her hair, only to stop when she caught the cautious eyes of one of the Orcs in the lingering crowd.

She narrowed her eyes, staring at them silently for a few seconds, before sniffing at the air. The Orc seemed to flinch at that, which just made Belladonna hum softly and tilt her head in curiosity, before allowing herself to dissolve into the shadows.

The Elder glanced over to the Orc that she had been staring at, but they were already lost in the crowd as they went about their usual business, before he let out a deep and heavy sigh.

"Old Woman, are you sure this is the right decision? To submit ourselves to one such as her?"

"Who are you calling old woman?" The Witch barked, slapping Elder Jeskal’s arm with her cane, before her face twisted into a crooked smile and she chuckled.

"Why do you ask me such a thing anyways? You know my answer. You have seen the Ancestral Marks she bears.

We all have our scars marking our victories, even a spry young beauty like me. But not even you have scars that hold so much power.

If you had shunned such a woman from our tribe and bid her never to return, I would have followed her to the ends of the world without wasting the breath to tell you.

Although I have no doubt that you wouldn’t be far behind me in that venture."

Elder Jeskal chuckled, "No, I suppose I wouldn’t. You’re right, as always. Your wisdom is as vast as your age."

He laughed as she slapped him again, before continuing,

"I was simply making sure that pledging our clan to her, out of my own selfish madness."

"Well if it is, then we are mad together." The Witch said with a crooked smile, as they laughed together.