First we searched the bodies. The archer did not carry any vials. His arrows were normal too, as far as we could tell. They had a little money, which was nice.

Now, what would I do with the corpses? Animating them made sense. But I did not have the time to turn them into proper skeletons. More zombies then… Wait, could I animate a headless corpse? How much of the body needed to be intact?

While my friends looked for tracks I focused on the bodies. The one who got stabbed was easy. The headless archer… less so. The fall further damaged the corpse. I needed a lot more magic to make it rise. Once it did there were some problems. The headless zombie had trouble orienting itself.

“You would think a head is not necessary for an undead. It’s not like they use normal senses.” Cassie commented, as she watched my creation stumble around.

“I think the problem is the spell. You can craft an undead from different body parts but you need to change the magic. I think the basic raise undead spell is designed to make use of the head.” I theorised.

“We found a trail.” Skadi said. “Can you call your zombies and the Iron Beaks from the camp?”

I shook my head. “No. They are too far away for some direct orders.”

“So, if we follow the trail we might get into a fight without your undead. If we go back and get them we might lose the element of surprise.” Helena summarised.

“Yes. I do think we are better off with my undead though.” I said.

“I agree. We should totally get the Iron Beaks!” Cassie said.

“Makes sense.” Skadi agreed. Helena nodded.

“I will drop the headless zombie…” I just finished the sentence when we heard a crunching sound. Nyx was eating the failed undead. “Nevermind. I will bring the working zombie with us. Nyx is disposing of the evidence.”

“If we don’t follow the river we can get back to the camp faster. There is a more direct route.” Helena said while studying her map. “Should still take us over an hour though, even if we move fast.”

“Let’s do it.” Skadi said.

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We walked at a reasonable pace. While speed was important we still had a battle ahead of us. There was no point rushing in and then collapsing from exhaustion. Back at the camp we quickly gathered the Iron Beaks and zombies. I only left the two goblins behind. They could keep watch and protect our supplies from the wildlife. Then we returned using the same path.

“Do you think they are already missing their scouts? What are the odds that they have sent new ones?” Cassie asked.

I shrugged. “No idea. We haven’t really been trained in running such operations yet. What are good practices for scouts?”

“Depends.” Helena said. “If you send your scouts further ahead it usually increases the time between checks. We don’t know how close their base is.”

“If you are observing someone closely you would not want to risk discovery by switching your scouts too often. You would probably want them to stay in place.” Skadi suggested.

“But if we are moving the scouts watching us have to move anyway.” I pointed out.

Skadi pondered that. “Fair enough.”

“It might also depend on how likely they think they are discovered. And how many good scouts they have. You can’t rotate shifts without having additional people.” Helena said.

“So basically we have no idea.” I summarised.

“By the way, did those scouts count as ambush? Nobody bet on us ambushing someone.” Cassie said.

I shrugged. “Nobody bet on being ambushed while hunting anyway.”

“Also, there could be more attacks. Even if we deal with this group.” Skadi said.

“We can all agree that Koyuki lost since she suggested we might not get attacked at all.” Helena said.

“Hey, I never said that was a bet!” I protested.

“No, Helena has a point. Clearly you lost.” Skadi said.

Cassie nodded.

I pouted. “You are mean.”

We stopped our banter once we reached the site of the previous encounter. There was no disturbance. The tracks from earlier were still there. We carefully followed them. The zombies formed a ring around us. Frank was with us in the centre. The Iron Beaks followed slightly behind. We did not want to walk right next to the bombs. Nyx was outside looking for hidden enemies. Or at least I thought she was doing that. One never knew with cats.

While we did our best to be silent we were not trained to sneak. And the zombies did not help either. There was a good chance we would be spotted at some point. Hopefully we would be close enough by then to stop them from preparing.

One member of our team was actually stealthy. Nyx. So stealthy that we did not even notice her killing someone. She had gone slightly ahead and eliminated a lookout hiding in a bush. Now she was smugly sitting on his corpse.

“Good kitty!” I praised her.

“We must be getting close.” Helena said.

“I think there is a clearing up ahead, behind those bushes.” Skadi said while squinting.

The forest was relatively thick here. They found a well concealed location. Of course, it meant their camp did not have a good view of their surroundings. The lookout would have certainly fixed that problem if he had not become cat food.

We felt relatively smug as we closed in on our enemies. Until we heard a cry.

“ALARM! WE ARE UNDER ATTACK!”

“Well, so much for that.” Helena said.

“Time to go loud.” Cassie said holding a vial.

We could see the camp now. They had no defences, like walls or a moat. But they were a rather large group. I could see a lot of tents and many armed people running around. Also… Were those cages? That was a problem for later though.

My zombies formed a battle line in front of us. The Iron Beaks waited behind for their orders. It was time to show those thugs that they had messed with the wrong necromancer.