Chapter 3
A lone man knelt in the bloody dirt in the center of an abandoned village, and he knew with a dread certainty, that his family was dead.
He had returned to his village after a trip to the neighboring village of haven, only to find every single person gone. Alone and in pain, he wept for a long time, before finally finding the strength to stand once again.
Weeks later…
The men were hot and uncomfortable after a long day of riding, and it was all the worse for Alaric, crown prince of the Kingdom of Vylar, due to his full plate mail.
This is ridiculous. He thought, wondering for the 20th time why his father chose now to let him prove himself. A man had arrived in Keldor, the capitol, with some fantastic story about an entire village, completely abandoned in the southwest corner of the kingdom.
Entire villages don't just go missing. Something had to have happened. But why should his father send him? Admittedly he had just last month turned 16, and this was the first thing to happen to need royal attention, but still…it seemed odd to send him out for something like this, with no idea of what was happening. At least he had enough men, he thought wryly. The king wasn't taking many chances with his only son. 200 men followed him, far more than necessary to investigate something like this.
They reached a large clearing, with a stream running through.
Alaric halted the column and turned to captain Kurtis. "We camp here for the night, we'll make the village tomorrow."
"Yes, your highness" said Kurtis.
They arrived at the village near noon the next day, finding nothing alive, and no obvious clues except for dried blood in the middle of the village.
"Kurtis, have the men start searching the immediate area, look for anything out of the ordinary." Said Alaric, softly.
"Yes, your highness" Kurtis replied. Then set to ordering the men.
Alaric dismounted and walked the perimeter of the village square. There was a lot of blood and a few broken weapons, but nothing else. Then he looked more closely at the ground; there were a lot of footprints, most of them what you would expect from boots or bare feet, but some that were very strange. They had a normal heel but no arch, and where the ball of the foot would have left a single mark, there was a row of smaller ones.
"Kurtis?" said Alaric as he heard him coming up behind him "what are these footprints?"
"Skeletons, your highness." Kurtis answered. "Apparently this was done by a necromancer. Though how he butchered an entire village I don't know."
A soldier ran up to the two "sir," he said to Kurtis "we found some graves, they're being dug up now."
"Show me" said Alaric, and in response the soldier started back the way he came. Alaric and Kurtis followed.
The graves were a short distance outside the village. When they arrived the men digging stepped back to give the prince and captain a view.
The corpses were children, only children.
"I don't understand." Said Alaric "why only children?"
"They don't make very good skeletons, your highness." Kurtis replied
"Yes, of course. But why attack a village?" Alaric said, "it draws too much attention, and what is the necromancer going to do with that many bodies? There's no point…unless there's more than one of them…"
"Would take a lot of them to have a use for that many bodies." Kurtis said.
Alaric came to a decision. "Rebury the bodies. Kurtis, send a messenger to my father, tell him what we've found." He said, walking quickly toward his horse. "Then gather the men, we follow the skeletons."
"The villagers were all killed in the village center. That means there were a lot of skeletons. With that many, added to the number of bodies they took…" Kurtis said, as Alaric mounted his horse.
"If there are that many necromancers out there, with that many skeletons, then what's going to happen when they reach the next village? And the one after that? We could soon have an army on our hands, captain."
Kurtis stood silently for a moment, then turned and began issuing orders.
Traenann received a telepathic communication from a scout. The scouts - and in fact the whole army - reported to him, so that Bane would not be bothered by routine events. Not that he had any real control over the skeletons. They obeyed him because Bane told them to, not because of anything he did or was.
("Master") Traenann said to Bane, ("The force you were expecting is now on our trail. They number approximately 200")
("Yes...") Came the reply ("We are ready for them?")
("Of course Master,") Traenann said ("…Master? This may be a difficult battle, we number only about 80 more than them, and they are better armed.")
("Yes, but it is a necessary battle.") Answered Bane
("Of course, but are you sure that you do not want me to protect you once the battle starts?")
("Yes, I need you to end it. Quickly. Kill their commander.")
("Yes, Master") said Traenann.
They had been on the trail of the skeleton army for a week now and had passed through two more abandoned towns. Even Alaric was becoming worried at their chances.
He had been sure to send messengers to the king at every village, and every few days regardless.
The army seemed to be simply going from village to village, gathering skeletons.
He and his men were now in the Drak'Kul desert. He wasn't sure why the necromancers were going through here, but it didn't matter. Whatever they were doing, he had to stop them.
A scout returned at full speed from up ahead, over a high dune.
"Your highness." The scout said, after catching his breath a moment, "the army is just over that dune. They appear to be camped. There are maybe 100 of them, but I only saw one living man. He was in a crude litter. And the skeletons did not appear to be well armed or armored except for one that appears to be guarding the necromancer"
"Only a hundred of them?" Alaric asked, surprised at the low number. "They must have split their forces." He turned to Kurtis "this is our chance. With our greater numbers and better arms, they have no chance."
Kurtis was silent a moment then said, "I don't trust this your highness. Something's wrong. What purpose would there be to splitting their forces?"
"I don't know, Kurtis. But it doesn't matter. They made a mistake, let's take advantage of it." Said Alaric
"Your highness. I've got a very bad feeling about this. And I've learned to trust my feelings." Kurtis replied.
Alaric shook his head. "We attack, Kurtis" he said, "Get our men in formation."
Once the men were in formation they advanced until they reached the top of the dune. The man in the litter stood and looked toward them, the skeletons forming up into lines. Alaric ordered the advance to continue at a walk, they still were about 200 yards from the skeletons. They reached the low area between two dunes. One of which was the one occupied by the skeletons.
Suddenly, just before Alaric was going to call the charge, the sand around them heaved and skeletons that had been buried with their weapons rose up out of the ground. Now instead of facing 100 skeletons, they were facing almost 300 and were surrounded.
"Form a square!" shouted Kurtis a split second after the skeletons rose. "Protect the prince!"
Several skeletons began firing arrows into the troops as they rushed to form a square around prince Alaric, and, from the top of the dune came the one armored skeleton bristling with weapons, at a speed far greater than Alaric would have believed possible.
The men engaged the skeletons at the edges of the square, but they were having only moderate success despite their better weaponry.
From still several yards behind the lines of skeletons, the armored one leapt. He sailed over both lines of battle to land before Alaric, with a large two-handed sword drawn. But rather than advance, he quickly turned and struck down two of the soldiers forming the square with 2 lightning quick blows, decapitating them.
Skeletons rushed to come through the newly created hole and widen it before the soldiers could stop them, and the armored one turned.
Kurtis interposed himself between Alaric and the armored skeleton, who struck an overhand blow at him. Kurtis barely managed to bring up his own hand and a half sword (which he was using two handed) in time to deflect the blow toward the ground, where it struck with enormous force, kicking up a shower of loose sand. Kurtis tried to take advantage of the opening left by the deflection with a backhanded swing toward the skeleton's neck, but with a speed that defied everything he knew, the skeleton blocked the attack with enough force to knock his sword far out of position. Then before he could he could recover his sword, the skeleton struck a downward blow to his shoulder, cleaving halfway through his rib cage.
Traenann hardly spared a glance for the corpse falling to the ground and stepped forward toward the one his opponent had striven to protect, apparently the prince. He lashed out with his sword and cut through the bottom half of the horse's neck.
The prince barely managed to avoid his leg being crushed by the horse as it fell, rolled away and came to his feet facing Traenann with his sword held at the ready.
Traenann lunged and slammed the prince's sword with his own, launching it from his grasp and leaving him defenseless. The prince backed away slowly, and a soldier apparently noticing the danger his prince was in charged Traenann. Without ever taking his eyes off the prince, Traenann struck at the soldier and killed him, almost as one would swat an annoying insect. He advanced, drawing back his sword for the blow to kill the prince… and paused.
Something in his buried memories flashed to the surface. Another time, another place, before a boy who looked very much like the prince, he stood; sword drawn back, and brought his sword, which he noticed was blunted, to the boy's throat.
He returned to the present, and for a long moment, stood motionless. Then he brought his sword, this one quite sharp and bloody, to another boy's throat.
Rather than killing him as Alaric thought he would, the terrifying skeleton before him only held his sword at his throat. Then in a cold, lifeless voice called out "Surrender now or your prince dies!"
Alaric's soldiers surrendered of course. They had no choice.
The skeletons rounded up the remaining men and took their weapons. There were still quite a few of them left; the battle had been short.
Once the men were all rounded up and unarmed, the skeletons began slaughtering them while Traenann stood off to a side with the prince.
"No!" Alaric shouted, "What-"
"Quiet, child," interrupted Bane, walking up behind Alaric and Traenann. For some reason he couldn't name Alaric did as he was told. Then Bane, turning to Traenann, said, "Why did you not kill him as I instructed?"
"Master, he is a prince. He could be valuable." Replied Traenann, "I did not want to kill him without your confirmation."
Bane turned to look closely at Alaric, ignoring the screams of the dying soldiers "I see," he said "yes, perhaps we shall keep him."