Xander’s Back Story

Xander sat in the village watch post bored, tired, and with his watch almost over he was nodding off when a shadow moved outside the village wall. Xander’s head snapped up his eyes raking the darkness for any sign of movement. Then the darkness gave forth a dozen zombies, who stumbled towards the wall. Xander reached over and picked up the mallet that went with the alarm bell and gave it a light tap twice in succession, it rang with a metallic sound calling the night guard to the wall to destroy the small group of walking corpses.

When the guard reached the top of the wall, they shot down the walkers without trouble, but an arrow flew and knocked a man off the wall as they turned away. He toppled and landed with a dull thud, for a count of three the guards just stood there looking at the man who had fallen, then another arrow flew over the wall missing the next man in line by inches. The men whirled to the wall and began searching for the shooter, then a marauder emerged from the dark, then another and another.

Xander ran through the village shouting for the watchmen, “Up arms! Up arms!” doors flew open as men scrambled for blades and bows. Xander ran to the armory and seized a crossbow, and a handful of arrows, then ran back to the wall. When he arrived a dozen men lay sprawled at the bottom of the wall, he ran along until he came to where his father stood with his longbow watching the dark sometimes letting fly when a marauder walked into the light cast by the torches on the wall but the marauders gave better than they took, sometimes knocking a man off the wall, at others sending the defenders scattering for cover. Then they heard a dull roar and a ravager thundered out of the dark surrounded by walkers, whenever the defenders popped out to fire on the beast they were sent scurrying for cover by the marauders.

Then the beast was at the gates, there was a thunderous boom and the gate groaned ominously, then another boom, and the bar cracked, then once more, and the bar split. Then the walkers were on the street, the ravager was wandering through the town destroying anything it came across, and the marauders began to come into the light shooting wildly, with their attention divided between the inside and the outside archers quickly began to fall. Xander began to focus on the walkers knocking them off their feet whenever they began to get too close to the people running and panicking, Xander’s father ran down the steps leading up to the wall and hacked down a walker, threw aside his bow and brought down a two-hander on another walker’s skull. Xander shot down a walker moving towards his father’s back, his father moved on without even noticing what happened, picked up an ax, and flung it at the back of a marauder taking the thing in the back.

Then a dozen more walkers stumbled through the ruined gate followed by more marauders, they quickly overwhelmed what was left of the watch