The knight stands tall in the village square.  It's far from the throne and leagues beyond the walls of the nearest lord.  A gentle breeze disturbs the grasses growing at the edges of the streets, in the corners where road meets wall.  The houses are mudbrick.  The lucky ones have shutters across glassless windows.  The rest only have doors.

The knight stands by the well.  Its roof is crooked, one post bent and splintered.  Its rope hangs loosely, the breeze moving it too easily for it to carry any bucket.

The knight stands silently.  A crow calls out from high above, and the knight drops a pebble from a gauntleted grasp.  Down and down the pebble tumbles...  A distant splash.  The knight lifts a sword.  A little dust is disturbed by a shift in stance.  More dust is disturbed in the distance.  A thump.  A clattering crash.  People spill into the streets, running, tumbling, scrambling toward the square, their only accompaniment the muted sounds of barehanded scuffles.

The knight stands ready.  A woman is the first to reach the well.  Her right arm is trapped awkwardly beneath her shawl—there's a pin through the fabric, holding it to her shirt, but it's slipped from her shoulder to bind her arm tightly to her side.  She reaches, and she falls, head rolling apart from her body.  Her shawl is green.

A man with a frayed straw hat is next, and three children topple him, tearing his arms free from their sockets as they pull him down, clambering over his fallen form to reach the knight, and a dog is biting at their heels, and strange and twisted villagefolk beset the knight from all sides.

The knight stands tall, when all is said and done.  The villagefolk surround the well, all slumped akimbo.  The knight's stance slumps.

Crows circle as the knight carries the bodies to the village's edge.  They call, occasionally, in their raspy tones as the knight searches a shed and returns with a shovel.  Only one lands atop the bodies as the knight begins to dig.  The rest settle in the trees as night falls.

For three days and three nights, the knight digs, without rest, without food, without drink, tirelessly, from sunrise to sunset to sunrise again.  On the fourth day, the knight places the bodies in the grave, and wordlessly begins to fill it back in.

By evening of the sixth day, the work is done.  The knight returns the shovel to the shed, then pauses at the door, looking out at the empty fields.  They still have the look of tending to them. The living death couldn't have swept through here long ago.

The windbreak of trees has long been relieved of its avian burden.  Only one set of eyes watches the knight return to the village square where the dusty ground shows a dark rust here and there.  The knight looks at the well, with its crooked roof, and broken post, and missing pail.

The knight stands, plates of steel slowly shifting against one another, unseen muscles tensing.  In a rage, the knight strikes at the posts of the well's roof, starlight flashing across the naked blade of the sword—with a crash and a thud, half the roof collapses, the sword stuck fast in the final post, sturdier than the others.  The knight steps back and yanks it free, nearly spinning with the effort, and shoves the final post, steel gauntlets grating on the wood.  With a splintering crack, it gives, the roof crashing down to the stone rim of the well.

The knight stands, and looks at it, and it does nothing.  There are no villagefolk.  There are no farm beasts.  There are no crows.  There is no one to fix the well.  There is no one to test its waters.  No one to build a new one, a safe one—no one to draw from it if they did.  No one to tend the empty fields, or fill the empty houses.  The knight's victory is as hollow as the village, as hollow as the armor that is the knight.  The knight cannot succumb to the living death.  What solace is that when the knight lives only among the dead?  When the knight deals only death, and never life?

The knight stands, and holds out an arm, the vambrace and gauntlet painted red, unlike the rest of the blackened armor.  The lone remaining crow flies from a roof to alight on the knight's arm.  The knight turns, and walks out of the village.

It isn't the first.  It won't be the last.  The knight's wake is full of empty houses and crowded graves.  The knight stands at a crossroads.  The crow circling above calls a question.  The knight stands still.  The crow calls again, and circles lower, and settles on the knight's helmet.  Ahead: the lord's hold.  The lord should be given news of the village's fate.  To the left: another village, not distant.  The knight has yet to visit it.

The crow pecks at the knight's helmet, impatient.  The knight turns, and walks away down the righthand road.

The crow caws, and pecks again, and again, and flies around the knight's head, but the knight doesn't waver, but only continues on, until the crow gives up, settling on the knight's shoulder and looking back toward the crossroads, with only the occasional anxious peck at the knight's helmet.

The lightening sky of pre-dawn finds the knight at another crossroads.  There is no debate this time.  The knight turns onto the royal road, headed straight for the capital.  The crow perks up, glancing back, and forward, and at the knight.

There is no solace in bringing death to the dead.  More must be done.  There must be more to be done.  Solace is found in restoring life to those not yet gone.  Solace is found in cures, and remedies.  A sword is only a dirge, and the knight is tired of tragedy.

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Based on ZombieHorde's prompt:

You believe you're the one destined to save the world from the zombie apocalypse.  Will you rise as humanity's hero, or succumb to the chaos?