“Blood and bones, that’s cold!” Tyron exclaimed as a shiver ran through his arm.

He snatched the limb back from the edge of the cart and rubbed it vigorously, encouraging the blood flow as he glared at the nothing on his right. Except it wasn’t nothing, as well he knew.

“They got you again?” Dove chuckled. “Man, these guys really know how to hold a grudge.”

“I’m not even certain they’re doing it on purpose,” Tyron muttered. “They kind of drift in place when they aren’t actively moving somewhere.”

“They coincidentally happen to drift into you multiple times?” Dove was sceptical.

“They shouldn't be able to act against me in any way. Part of the Raise Dead ritual builds in controls so that they can’t refuse orders and can’t harm me.”

“Perhaps it doesn’t count as harm if all they do is make you cold and piss you off. I’m not surprised they’d want to rebel given the circumstances. Imagine working for an honest living your entire life and then getting enslaved by some fluffy-chinned punk after he murdered you. That’s rough.”

The Skull made a clucking sound as he mulled over the monstrous actions Tyron had committed. For his part, the Necromancer stared hard at his friend, not rising to the bait. Describing the men as having worked ‘an honest living their entire lives’ was too much, even for the former Summoner. These guys had been thieves, killers and rapists.

No matter the reason, Dove continuously poked and prodded Tyron about his new minions, wheedling away, despite having convinced him to do it in the first place!

Simply one of the ways the skull continued to be both a welcome companion and a total pain in the backside at the same time. Tyron ignored him for a moment and directed his thoughts toward the connection he shared with his undead. The seven bandits he’d killed had been processed and would reach saturation in a few hours, after which he planned to raise them as skeletons. His loyal bone-centric minions were not what he had his mind on for the moment though, he was more interested in the other six.

As he engaged the mental connection they shared, he shuddered again at the strange, alien touch of those undead minds. The skeletons barely had a thought in their heads at all, so they didn’t give this kind of feedback. A skeleton was almost like a magickal construct, in a sense, one made using human remains. The ‘mind’ was entirely artificial and they were as pliable as wooden dolls, with no resistance or desires of their own.

The ghosts were different. Bound by magick and chained by ritual, a crude facsimile of a human mind was contained within each. They didn’t think clear thoughts; for reasons Tyron didn’t quite understand, they lacked even the limited capacity to communicate they’d had in life.

His current working theory was that the vessel, or container, that he had created was too crude an implement for their spirit to inhabit fully. This would mean they were incapable of employing the full range of their thoughts and emotions, leaving the ghost as a relatively simple creature.

It was also possible that dying and leaving the body tainted had changed the spirit in some way. Even in conversation when he employed the Speak with Dead ritual, the ghosts had been… different from their human selves. Cruder. Vengeful. Being bound in their new form hadn’t seemed to perk them up any. If anything, it made them worse.

As he touched minds with his new minions, cold, numb fury was all he could sense from them. Currently, four of them were spread around the cart in a rough square, with skeletons a further hundred metres in. The other two were beside him on either side of the vehicle, with one getting a little too close every time they stopped.

He quickly enacted the spell that allowed him to ‘see’ through the eyes of a minion. The ghosts possessed even poorer vision than the skeletons, but made excellent scouts. Near invisible, they hovered above the ground like a freezing wind. If someone were to get too close, they would more than likely notice the unnatural cold before they managed to see the faint, purple outline of the spirit.

Seen through the eyes of the ghosts, the world was a twisted nightmare landscape covered in strange purple winds. It was unnerving to look at, but far better than being blind, something that proved especially important as he checked the third ghost.

“Damn,” he said. “Looks like a patrol.”

“Bound to happen eventually. Good thing we don’t look suspicious.”

Tyron stared at him.

“What? Sure, I’m a talking skull, and the cart is filled with bags of meticulously sorted bones, and we’re surrounded by the walking dead, but other than that, we’re good.”

“You’re not funny.”

“Oh, you hurt my feelings. Except I don’t have any, I’m a spectre clinging to the mortal plane by unnatural means.”

“Shut up, Dove.”

Tyron tuned out the skull and focused through the eyes of his servant once more. It was hard to tell, but he felt there might be three or four of them. Slayers, merchants or marshals, it was impossible to tell. He could move the skeleton nearby closer, or go himself for a better look, but he felt it was best not to take chances. The group wasn’t travelling directly for them, but would pass them some distance to the north.

“Hup.”

He jumped down from the cart so the skeletons could move it more easily and instructed them to drag it from the path. The frequent mounds and hills of the foothills were well behind them now, but that didn’t mean there weren’t places to hide. Vegetation became more common on the plains, the landscape dotted with copses of trees between developed farmland.

“More and more people coming through the plains,” Dove remarked from his position atop a corner post of the cart. “Not really the best time to be planning mass murder, now is it?”

“Not like I have a choice,” Tyron said. “They aren’t far away now. We could probably reach them tonight if we don’t run into more travellers.”

He reached out again and shifted the position of his scouts, making sure he maintained a perimeter. It was inefficient to keep the undead so far from him, but he could spare it. His capacity continued to grow as he progressed, to the point he could easily maintain his current minions, even if the ghosts took far more than a skeleton did.

Much of that could be put down to his sloppy work creating the vessels for them. For a first attempt, it wasn’t terrible, but much like his early bone-stitching, there were many errors. He wasn’t confident enough in the technique yet to try and improve his existing spectres, but with more practice, he would be able to fix them, somewhat.

“That means Yor will catch up to us before we reach them. You think she’ll want to help out?”

“Yor?” Tyron pondered. “I don’t think so. She hasn’t been too keen to help me thus far. Not overtly, anyway.”

“I got the impression she really didn’t like this particular bunch. She wasn’t her usual self around the women at that farm.”

“Are you suggesting…?”

“I’m saying it's natural for her to have sympathy. She may be an inhuman, blood sucking monstrosity now, but once upon a time, she was a human woman. If she wants to rip the lungs out of one of those bastards and then wring them out like a wet cloth into her open mouth, I wouldn’t be shocked.”

“That sounds… disturbingly specific.”

“You telling me you haven’t fantasised about that?”

“That’s what I’m saying, Dove, yes.”

“Weak.”

Tyron shook his head, but kept his eyes on the travellers through his ghost. He didn’t neglect to check via his other scouts also, making sure he kept tabs on all directions.

“Alright, we can keep moving,” he said. Instructing the skeletons to return the cart to the trail, he leapt up into the back again. “Another few hours and we’ll make camp. Do a bit of scouting.”

“Any ideas on how you’re going to approach Monty and his merry band? You don’t have the benefit of being on the defensive this time, it’s going to be tricky.”

Tyron thought for a moment.

“We’ll need to see where they holed up to get a better idea,” he said, “and I’ve got a few things to go over with you regarding the spells I have. I think we can work out a couple of things that might help. There’s another seven skeletons to add to the crew as well.”

“Hopefully it’s enough.”

“There’s not much I can do if it isn’t.”

“Well, there’s always Yor.”

“Dove….”

“I’m telling you, man, the lung has a surprisingly spongy texture. She could get a lot of juice out of there. Running over her arms and face… fucking sexy stuff.”

“You’re a twisted, depraved man, Dove. Death doesn’t seem to have helped that any.”

“I think it just removed the few inhibitions I had left.”

“Whose idea was it to bring you back to life? I must have been drunk.”

“Hate to break it to you, kid, but with a constitution that high, you may never get drunk again. There’s special brews made for tough slayers, but they’re expensive as heck.”

“Great.”

The two continued to bicker as they rode the cart forward into the fading light.

Elsewhere on the plains.

Laurel slid her fingers along the string of her bow, marvelling once more at the fidelity she felt against her skin. As she grew in strength and her skills improved, it was as if the bow had become a part of her body, an extension of her hand in every sense of the word. She’d heard that from several trainers and students who worked exclusively with one weapon, that the more you levelled your Class, the more dependent on the weapon you became.

When she caressed the string, she would swear it caressed her back.

And she was yet to ascend. Just what would her bow become when she was level sixty? Or eighty? She shivered. Just imagining it sent a thrill rushing through her. Wary of distracting herself, she bit her cheek, letting the shock of the pain sharpen her mind.

It was cold on the plains; a chill wind blew her cloak against her body as a light drizzle fell from overhead. Dreadful weather for an archer, yet still they were sent out to scout ahead, as always. Lucky her abilities could mitigate the effects of damp on the string, or else she’d be totally useless.

At least her eyes were alight in the darkness, seeing clearly where others could not. She stepped across the terrain like a ghost, leaving almost no footprint as she went, all senses open wide.

The cluster of buildings loomed in the distance, a faint outline against the grey sky. Perhaps a viable camping location? Some proper shelter from the weather would be welcome for the Slayers, despite their high levels of endurance.

Too soft, was her opinion. I spent longer out hunting in the woods without a single level to my name.

But what was this? Light? Flickering through a window, a fire then? Fire meant people. Possibly bad people.

Her finger danced down the string once more before she reached behind to pull an arrow from her quiver. She slotted it against the string in one smooth, silent motion as her eyes widened and her nose flared. She would need to get closer, there was nothing to see from here.

A defensible set of farm houses. Rather impressive for a group of families living this far out. Laurel circled around the perimeter and saw that only half the buildings were occupied, the other two were dark and cold. She crept closer.

She could smell food cooking, and there was laughter, from children?

She relaxed her grip on the string with some disappointment as she approached to peer through a window. She glimpsed a gathering of women and youngfolk, gathered around the hearth before she tucked her head away. She sighed.

As Slayers, they hadn’t just been tasked with destroying any rift-kin they came across. They were also expected to check in on communities they found and ensure they were safe. Which meant she had to go and talk to these people.

She sighed again and slid the arrow back in her quiver. Might as well get this over with. She stepped back from the window, not wanting to spook anyone, and called out to them.

“Ho the fire! Slayer patrol!”

She could hear the startled exclamations from inside and soon a face appeared, along with a simple bow pointing out into the dark. It was almost cute.

“Who’s there?” a woman demanded. “Speak your name.”

“I’m Laurel Macraith,” she called back, “a scout from a Slayer hunting party. We’ve been asked to check every settlement we find.”

There was a long moment of silence before further words were spoken.

“Are you alone?”

“I am.”

“Then come in out of the rain.”

When she stepped inside, she was surprised to see how fearful these women were, throwing glances at her knives and arrows as they clutched their children to them.

She shook out her dark cloak and nodded to them, taking a moment to scan the room. Only a moment later did she realise what was wrong. This wasn’t enough people to have worked such a large property. More to the point.

Where are the men?

Could all of them have died defending their families from the kin? Possible, but unlikely. Something far darker had taken place here.

Laurel looked from face to face until she found someone prepared to meet her eyes.

“Can you tell me what happened here?” she said.

The middle aged woman stared back through hooded eyes.

“Not much to tell,” she said, “bandits killed the menfolk and took over. We were rescued a while back and have been staying here since, trying to make some order of the place.”

The archer nodded gravely.

“I’m sorry we took so long to get here,” she said quietly.

And she was.

“Were you rescued by another Slayer group?” she asked.

The mood shifted in the room, like a wind curling around a guttering candle, the warmth was sucked away. She waited, but it seemed no one wanted to give an answer. There was something suspicious here.

It was for the marshals to deal with, not her. From the sounds of things, they’d have their hands full with this place. Someone else's problem.

“It was the Necromancer boy,” someone said.

Laurel’s eyes widened, turning to this new voice as the others hissed and growled at the woman.

“What? He said to tell them. That’s what he told us to do!”

“You’ve no shame, Bessun,” another woman spat.

“I’m only doin’ what he said to do,” Bessun said defensively, a child curled on her lap looking frightened. “This the only way we don’t get more trouble. We don’t deserve any more trouble.”

A hush came over the room at those words, but Laurel didn’t care. She stepped forward, her eyes alight, a smile on her face like a cat with one paw planted firmly on a bird’s wing.

“Why don’t you tell me a little more about that?”