Chapter 2: The power of three

The screams sounded all over the the small town turned battlefield. Men, woman and children all died by the hands of Genghis Kahn and his warriors. A lone soldier lifted up his sword in the air to attack but was hacked down quickly by Genghis himself who was riding across the town on his horse to order his men about.

It was all a bloody mess, a fight of armoured warriors against few soldiers and a lot of villagers. 

The Mongolian warlord jumped off his horse and walked into a small house where the two officers waited that he had brought in this little skirmish. Both still inexperienced, Genghis wanted to show them what leading soldiers was all about. They had not failed him. The two new officers greeted him and started speaking about this glorious battle that had been won by the Mongols. 'Silence' Genghis spoke. 'This was not a battle. This was an attack. A usefull one, but still an attack.' Normally, he could enjoy such flawless victories with some sort of pleasure, but not today. He was unable to put his mind to rest. Ever since he had combined all the Mongol tribes into one army, he had become a nonstop killing machine. The battles and disagreements between the tribes were slowly dissapearing and the Mongols really began to act as one solid army. But even though everything was going great, the kahn felt restless the past few days.

As the three men talked, a knock on the door was heard. The door opened and a soldier stood in the doorway. It was a veteran of several campagins and a man with a good heart. 'My kahn' he spoke. 'Some of us have found a treasure hidden in one of the houses.'  Genghis followed the man towards an house where two eldery people were being held by soldiers.
Ignoring the man and woman who were begging for their lives, Genghis stepped inside and saw that one of his soldiers was holding a green crystal. The man gave the crystal to the leader and Genghis looked at it for several moments before tucking it away in a pouch.
As Genghis walked outside again, the old man dropped on the knees and begged the Mongol leader to give the crystal back. 'It has been in my family for a long time. It is for my son when i die. Please, I beg you. I beg you, please'
'Now it is mine' Genghis spoke while the old man got dragged away to be killed.

When the warriors returned to camp, Genghis took his extra  flammable arrows from his horse and jumped off the animal.  She had acted great as usual and now deserved rest. Genghis walked into the officers tent, followed by the two new officers. The three men joined in on the ground with the others and they talked about the battleplans.  Genghis explained that by attacking this town, they forced the locals to act quick, something that would be very usefull.
When the talk had gotten to the loot captured, Genghis took the crystal and showed it to the rest. To his suprise, the green crystal had now turned red and seconds later, a sudden light hit him and everything went black.

'How is he?' 'He'l come by i think' Genghis heard people talking while he slowly regained his conciousness. The eyes of the Mongolian were still closed and Genghis could not see who were talking. The  voices did not sound familiar either.
As the kahn  opened his eyes, he saw a figure standing in front of him. The figure was that of a young man, by the looks Chinese. He was bald and had an orange robe. The man looked like someone from an Chinese order but Genghis was unable to say from what order this man came from.
'How are you?' The man spoke with a kind and gentle voice. 'Where am I?' Genghis asked. He looked around and saw a big room with strange clothing hanging everywhere. There were also dolls the size of a man, who wore the clothing. The flour was soft, as if someone had taken a giant piece of cloth and spread it all around. But the most remarkable thing about this room, was the blood that was spread everywhere, as if there had been a battle here.

Before the Chinese monk could answer, another man came into view. This man looked like the soldiers from the west. He had a white skin, blond hair with a small beard, chainmail armour and he wore white cloth with a red cross on it and a white mantle with a red cross.
'Is the Mongolian awake already' The man asked. 'Yes but he still needs rest' came the answer of the monk.
'Can anybody say where I am and who you are?' Genghis asked while he tried to stand up. 'And where are my weapons?' he added.
'My name is Shang' The monk spoke. 'I am a monk of the Shaolin order.' He explained further.
'The name is Ardo. I am a Templar knight.'  the other man spoke.
'As for where we are. I am afraid, the two of us also don't understand what happened. We only know that it had something to do with crystals.' The monk spoke again. 'The question of your weapons is luckely more simple, they are in the corner.' The Shaolin added with a grin.
'We found you on the ground and if we had not picked you up, those things would have torn you apart.' It was Ardo who spoke this time. 'Things?' Genghis asked, unclear about everything at the moment.
'Yes, those demons. They look like normal humans, but they wear the same sort of clothing that we have found here. They cannot be killed by any normal means. We are here in hiding for them.' Said the knight.

Suddenly, loud roars could be heard. Ardo placed his helmet on his head, unsheated his sword and grabbed his shield, which was also white with a red cross. 'Grab your weapons' he yelled at Genghis. 'Don't yell at him, he needs rest' came the voice of Shang as he took his staff from a rack.
Genghis walked up to his weapons and as he grabbed his bow, fifteen strange people came into the room. These demons looked like corpses, slowly decaying. Some were in worsers states of decay then others, the clothes they wore were torn and covered in blood.
As the zombies approached the three warriors, Ardo jumped into action. He slashed one of the zombies across the chest while deflecting a scratch with his shield. He then used his shield to punch the zombie that had just tried to scratch him and impaled another in the stumach. The man withdrew his sword from the stumach but noticed that the zombie was just coming at him again. Ardo blocked another attack with his shield and used his pommel to break the nose of the zombie who was bashing the shield. Another zombie tried to bite his arm, but failed due to the chainmail.
Shang jumped in and kicked the zombie away that had tried to bite the Templar. The small monk then used his staff to attack the zombies. He hit them in the head, neck and chest but they kept coming back. One zombie that was hit with a fierce strike to the temple stayed down, but that was the only one.
One zombie noticed Genghis and tried to approach him. The Mongolian had his bow in hand and in a matter of seconds, three arrows impaled the zombie. The first went in the throat, the second in the stumach and the third in the heart. To his frustration, the zombie kept walking towards him, even though it should be dead already. The three men saw that fighting was useless and as they saw an opening, they ran out of the door. The three warriors started running without looking back. Unshure if the zombies followed, the three kept on going.


The two warriors waited patiently with their weapons drawn as someone appeared from the bushes. The man had a brownish skin colour, wore some sort of vest and had a strange helmet that looked like a tiger or Jaguar. As Ramses and Pete noticed that it was not a monster, they lowered their weapons. The strange man was still standing in front of the camp. He was holding a big piece of wood with stones embedded in it and he had a small dagger with him. 'My name is Ramses' Ramses spoke. 'We are here in peace' the pharaoh added.
The Aztec Jaguar thought for a moment and decided to join the other two. He placed himself near the campfire that was burning and finally spoke. 'I am Thula' After a quick chat, the three of them fell asleep.

 As the morning came, the warriors made ready to travel. Their main objective was finding out where they were.
They walked for half a morning without seeing anyone. The three used this time to get to know some more about the cultures of each other. Pete and Thula were suprised to hear that Ramses was an actual king and altough Pete did not seem to care much, Thula was impressed.
Suddenly Thula spoke. 'I can see others in the distance.' The three looked at each other and started walking towards the people that Thula saw. It did not take long for the other two warriors to see them also and the strangers were now heading for the small group also. The strangers turned out to be four people,  three men and a woman.They looked like they were dying, they had hollow eyes and they were dressed in rags. As the two groups met, Ramses feeled trouble. 'Back' he yelled. As he yelled it, he stepped back himself, avoiding a blow to the head. Pete grabbed his blunderbuss and fired it. He looked satisfied as the strange woman fell onto the ground. The satisfied look changed into one of amazement as he saw how the woman that he just shot, stood back up again. Pete grabbed his flintlock pistol and fired directly into the heart, without much effect.
'They can't die!' He yelled in panick. 'We noticed'  Ramses said as he was slashing his kopesh sword at his opponent.
Thuli was unable to speak as he was fighting two of them at once. He used his speed and macahuitl to his advantage but he also was unable to give a killing strike. The three of them got pushed back fast and hard. Without the ability to retreat, the three of them were dead men. 'Run for cover'  Ramses yelled.
He and the pirate ran towards some trees and when they noticed that Thuli was not following, they saw that he was still fighting his two opponents. 'Leave him' Pete yelled.
Ignoring the pirate captain, Ramses placed an arrow on his bow and fired it, aiming at the head of one of the creatures. The arrow entered the head close to the ear got stuck in there. To his suprise, the creature fell and stayed down. 'The head, the weak spot is the head.'  He yelled. Thuri did not let this go unnoticed and used his tecpatl dagger to slash at the face of one of the zombies and pierced the cheek of the other. To his suprise,   the two kept going and when Thuri was about to meet his doom, an arrow catched one of the zombies in the chest. The zombie stepped backwards a few times, which gave the Aztec enough time to jump out of the way and run. He did not like that, but it was better then getting killed by these monsters. Thuli quickly outrun the zombies, but had to leave his macahuitl behind. The three kept running untill they found some sort of shack they could climb on. The zombies were nowhere to be found. 'Are..you..okay?' Ramses spoke while he tried to catch his breath. The Jaguar nodded. 'One of them bit me, but that is all.' He said while he showed bitemarks on his arm. The three of them were silent for a moment, untill Pete spoke. 'What the fucking fuck was that?' he said. In all his travels, the pirate captain had never seen something like that.

A man walked up to the lost macahuitl. It was a young, pale man with  a small black beard. he was fully dressed in leather exept for the chaines on his arms. The young man smiled as he grabbed the weapon. He had seen the struggle of the three warriors and enjoyed it. It was him who had send to zombies after them in the first place. This all would be reported to his master.