Erwin sat and watched as the draugrs clashed with the skeletons. "How disturbingly familiar."
Soldiers on narrow city streets, meeting each other right around the corner, neither side able to reach for their gun.
Knowing they just cannot run away, two men battling tooth and nail to kill the other. Brutal, depressing.
"And a fight that ends with one side brutalizing the other, regardless of their cries, tears, or how uncomfortable, how disgusted they feel."
Erwin looked at his hands. A phantom sense still lingering there, the texture of a knife, the warmth of blood.
He shook that hand, as if trying to get rid of these feelings to no avail.
"I don't like how close it feels, but." He raised his head, looking at the two enemy groups. "The insight is just too valuable."
"Organized, disciplined, strong and enduring."
These were the words he would use to describe the draugr soldiers.
Despite being outnumbered, they kept the skeletons at bay with frighteningly competent teamwork.
Not only that, their armor, at parts lighter than that of some skeletons, proved to be much more capable.
Spears and swords cut and pierced forward, but the chain vest endured.
"By the looks of it, shallow cuts do nothing."
And to return the favor, they struck ferociously towards the skeletons.
Their arming sword chipped the bone away with each strike.
"It is slow." Neither side committed much. "But it's about to change." Erwin's eyes were on a skeleton. Its helmet had dropped, skull covered in cracks.
"And now." As Erwin spoke, a sword landed on the cracked skull, caving it in, causing the skeletons to take their first casualty.
Followed by the second loss, this time because draugrs managed to break its spine through constant pressure and strikes.
Followed by the death of a draugr through a lucky spear thrust to the face.
In no time, all balance and tactics were lost. The sound of shaking armor and clashing steel intensified.
Both sides rolled on the muddy ground, stumbling into the cracks in the river. Attacking with no goal but to just hit something.
It was chaos.
And when it finally came to an end, there were still three skeletons standing against a lone draugr.
"It won't do."
Erwin got up, his shovel in hand, and approached the brawling undead.
The draugr was pinned down by the three skeletons, still struggling, trying to get them off itself.
But the skeletons were too many. It was unable to do anything, and one of the skeletons was preparing its sword to stab the draugr in the head and finish the fight.
At that moment, Erwin decided to enter the fight.
First, he threw his shovel like a spear, causing the skeleton with the sword to misstep and miss its supposed-to-be-easy attack.
Then he dashed at the nearest skeleton, grabbed it with both hands, and threw it to the floor.
As the undead monster tried to get up, he kicked it in the face and put it on the ground once more.
Positioning himself near its neck, Erwin readied the shovel and thrust it toward the cervical vertebrae.
The metal edge cut through the discs and stopped at the joint.
Erwin put one foot on the shovel head and stomped down.
With a loud crackling, the skeleton's head got separated from its body.
"Now, the rest."
Erwin turned around to see the draugr still struggling with the remaining skeletons.
He tried to fend off a skeleton that desperately clutched its leg in its attempts to escape the river current, while the draugr attempted to finish off another.
Meanwhile, the other skeleton was on the ground, trying to protect its head from relentless pummeling from the draugr.
Erwin watched the brawl from a safe distance. Let the undead wear each other out.
All came to a close shortly after.
Before the second skeleton could save itself from the icy river, the draugr managed to deform the kettle helmet worn by its target enough to crack, and then shatter its skull.
Once that target was gone, the angered undead got up and approached the last skeleton.
Standing on the slippery ice with multiple cracks and holes to fall into, both sides moved carefully.
But that careful attitude cost the skeleton; trying to keep its distance and avoid cracks, it failed to defend itself from a vertical slash of the draugr's arming sword.
The strike sent it stumbling back. Ice made it slip and lose its balance, and it fell through the thin ice, shattering it.
Inside the river, an underwater stream caught it, dragging the skeleton away.
"How terrifying an end."
Erwin watched the skeleton's translucent silhouette fade as it was dragged away.
"Now, it's just me and this one."
Erwin readied his shovel again and approached the draugr.
The undead reacted to his footsteps, turning and slashing its sword preemptively at Erwin.
"Careful." Erwin stepped back, the blade passing a comfortable distance away from his face.
Quickly, he followed it by smashing the shovel head to the draugr's face, cracking its frozen, dried nose and pushing it back, stumbling.
"I need to test something."
With the flat side of the shovel, he landed one more attack on the draugr's face before tackling into a grapple with the undead.
"Heavy, weighs as much as a human, unlike the skeletons." He murmured, his hands secure around the creature.
With his position secured, Erwin lifted the undead and threw it away from the river, onto the solid ground.
As it hit the dirt, the draugr's body scattered mud, ice, and snow across.
But a simple throw and some blunt hits weren't enough to defeat this enemy.
Only mere moments after being thrown, it was already trying to get up.
"More enduring than a skeleton. Smarter too."
Erwin mumbled as he approached the draugr, the trusty shovel once again in his hands.
"You have a wider range of actions. Cannot even compare it to the skeletons from before."
The fallen draugr was using one hand to point its sword at Erwin to keep him at bay, while the other to get up.
But the reach of the weapons and their positions meant such small tricks meant nothing in the end.
Erwin used his shovel to strike once more, aiming exclusively at the draugr's weapon-holding hand.
His strikes weren't strong; the enemy's constant wiggles and counterattacks didn't help either.
But he adjusted to the fight's rhythm. He played around the swings of the sword, not giving the draugr time to recover and get up.
And finally, once he found a large enough opening, he thrust the shovel forward, cutting some fingers, and causing the draugr to drop their weapon.
"Now is the time."
Erwin followed the opening by kicking the sword and, leaping forward, landing on the draugr's chest and stomping it down.
["Incredible performance, to say the least. I wasn't sure if you could escape the situation unscathed."]
Ivara's words crystallized as she appeared a couple of steps away from the ground where the brawl happened.
"I wasn't either. Really did expect to get caught in the fight once these guys showed up, but here I am."
["But the fight is still not over, right?"] Ivara pointed at the draugr under Erwin, still trying to push him away and get up.
Erwin lifted the shovel, aiming at the right arm joint of the draugr. "These creatures, they feel pain, at least react to. You are sure they are not sapient?"
Ivara shook her head. ["Their sense of self is already gone; they are no more than a shell, a mimic of who they once were. Though there are cases where a living soul gets trapped in an undead body, willingly or unwillingly. But you would be able to detect it if it was the case."]
Erwin nodded, pushing the shovel a little into the joint. "Still, does not make it any better. At least tell me if they have a weakness so that I can end this quickly."
Ivara looked at the struggling undead. ["Wish I could tell."]
"I see. I preferred to keep things more honorable, but my survival might depend on this."
With one strong stomp, he pinned the right arm to the ground before separating it from the body with a thrust of his shovel.
Ignoring the struggling and screams of the undead, he moved to the left arm, following the same procedure.
His face was emotionless, his hands steady, yet his eyes shook with disgust.
"It is for survival."
He repeated in his head.
After incapacitating the draugr, Erwin pushed the chainmail away for better striking.
Then, he grabbed the arming sword he kicked away from the ground, put it above the draugr's heart, blade pressing to the undead's chest, and quickly thrust it down.
Once the blade cut through the dried flesh and cleaved the organ, both the struggling and screams of the monster stopped.
Immediately after, he dropped the sword and took a couple of steps back.
["Did you satisfy your curiosity?"]
"They are different than skeletons. Their flesh gives them mass and strength, but they have more weak spots. Their brain and heart."
Erwin sat down on the ground, ignoring the snow wetting his clothes.
"It wasn't enjoyable."
Undead or not, he wanted to be away from needless death.
Yet, these creatures attacked him again and again.
"Not that I am afraid to kill when I have to, but…"
His eyes moved to the dead scattered on the forest floor.
They deserved a grave as well. Those nameless soldiers. Long dead, now wandering.
So, Erwin raised his shovel. "Forgive me for not knowing where you wished to be buried." He repeated before each undead, dragging them to the dry land.
They all still had valuables on them. Not tools or weapons, small trinkets and charms.
Erwin carefully gathered those trinkets, cleaning them as best he could with some clothes and river water.
Once he placed the trinkets somewhere safe, he searched the bodies, taking whatever useful equipment he could: armor, tools, weapons, etc.
"Forgive me. I need these for my survival. See it as a payment."
He repeated it before each body.
Then, in a forest, with no noise but the gently flowing river and the occasional rustling of the wind, he finished their graves one by one.
He decorated each one with little stones and the trinkets he gathered from their bodies.