Game of Kings First Phase revisited

The General Knight looked at his ribs again and flicked the third one down with his bony finger.
It made a high “pingy” noise.
“Oh how I wish I could tune these things, it could make a fine musical instrument”
he thought out loud to himself .
“Oh, who am I kidding – I am so bored”
The General Knight was sitting on his trusty steed Watebuscuit watching his charges practice their battle formations. Which they did each and everyday over and over and over again.
The Men under his command were just like him, a Risen Hero, an army of soldiers and leaders reanimated by the University of the Gears to help in the leadership of the White King’s army.
They were a very controversial bunch to start with and would have been sent back to the mausoleums and Necropolis that held them if it hadn’t been for the Queen and the King coming to an accord and making a strict set of protocols.
No reanimated member of the Risen Army could have memories other than that of the battlefield. No personal recollections of their lives prior to military service, of loved ones or their histories, not even their own deaths. These skeletons with armour and fighting styles from several centuries only lived for battle, and that was all they did.
Over and over again ad infinitum.

The General wished he’d had that privilege.
He was different, he remembered everything.
He remembered falling off his horse in the middle of a battle and before he could right himself, looking up at a massive barbarian holding a somewhat bigger axe, next thing he knew he was standing in front of the Queen and her Bishop in ceremonial armour and with see through hands.

He was a skeleton.

The Bishop did something that took away the shock and utter disbelief and briefed him on what his new role would be.

They then revealed him to the King and boy did that cause some problems.

It looked liked the King had found one of his own and it didn’t like him one bit.
Being a good servant the General stood his place and listened and observed.
It was obvious things had changed in the Kingdom since his death, the University staff were a great source of information and he gleaned as much as he could from them.
Then he was summoned back before his Queen and her Bishop.

But then they started asking questions.

“Did he remember the King and where he came from?”
and stuff about his past.
He remembered the King all right, but he was different now.
Though he looked the same age, he didn’t have his wings anymore – either that or he hid them pretty damn well.

He wasn’t the old King he remembered. The King he had served under was a happy King and rid the land of Warlords and greedy landlords who took advantage of and neglected their charges.
His King united his world.
The King still had the whole place under his control but these days seemed obsessed with building. Armies
He even saw that the King with the help of the University, had recruited a Mountain Titan into the army.
The General remembered losing a whole infantry of good men to rid these lands of that. Now it was a comrade.
Go figure.
The Queen and the Bishop tried to look like they weren’t surprised when he revealed what he knew about the King, but he could tell something was amiss.
Probably the worst part was he and all his Risen Heroes weren’t allowed to mix with anyone and were kept separate from the other army members except for special exercises or when the King or Queen wanted strategy information.
It was weird the Queen had sworn him on his professional oath not to reveal to his King that he had these memories and that he was privileged amongst all the Risen Heroes and then stick him under the King and his Bishop Angel’s noses on his flank.
Most times he just wished they had left him buried in the cold hard ground.



All things considered though he was comfortable in his own skin- No wrong term – bones- these days, everyone he knew was either dead or talked about battle strategy, but he still knew how to have a bit of fun as long as no one was watching.
He separated his skeleton army into equal teams and made them do berserker attack formations.
He nearly literally laughed his head off as the two sides smashed into each other and virtually exploded into a pile of bones and armour.
He loved watching them try and put themselves back together again.
He had to find fun where he could get it these days.