"What, you want me to just explain my big plan to my enemies, right here, right now?"

Singard shrugged limply. "It would sure help me understand what's going on."

The entity wearing the corpse of a man looked at Singard and smirked. "That's cute, I like that. Can someone make sure he doesn't bleed out? I want him to hear all this."

Just as it was about to start, it paused. Looking down at the rotting body it was wearing. "No, this just doesn't work, too, reanimated looking."

It turned its head to look at the clerics of Virion, speaking as if asking for a cup of sugar from a neighbor. "Mind if I use one of those? Thanks!"

As it spoke its gratitude, the body it was controlling fell in on itself, stumbling, before rising slowly once more, the keen eye of intellect gone from its eyes.

As this happened, one of the bodies from the pile rose. An elven woman drained of blood and thus made pale as a sheet.

But seemingly alive, if perhaps sick.

This only added a more unnerving quality to the entity, who had switched from a man's rotted body to this new form.

She shoved back the corpse she had been controlling, which was now shambling and hunched, and took its place.

Singard looked at the corpse being worn by the entity and softly murmured, "Poor Sarah."

Asgar shushed him, as he was the one who took to make sure the man's wounds didn't bleed out, tugging his pack off and digging into the bandages.

One of the clerics actually stirred at Asgar doing this, reaching outward as if to stop him before the eldest of them- a middle-aged woman who'd spoken previously, slapped his hand down.

Argus grimaced as the entity moved around in the body. "You parade the dead like this?" he stepped forward, ready with his weapon.

"Argus, wait." Asgar called.

"Why? This..thing mocks the dead and living with this display!" He snarled back.

"Just wait, while she's talking, I can make sure Singard doesn't die."

The undead creature laughed, then cleared her throat. "Where to start then... I feel like I should have had this prepared, you know? But with charmed fools like these for company, why bother with a conversation?"

"The doppelgangers." Asgar offered. "You were behind their planned betrayal of Elliot, weren't you?"

"Their what?"

"They tried to convince the three of us to run Elliot out of town. I suspect once they got us to, they would have suggested we kill him."

"Well, now, I feel uncreative. And a little foolish too! I should have used Dore somewhere else."

Argus stirred, "She was under your control." He could not help the disappointment that leaked into his voice.

"When you met her? No, just the opposite, actually- which was a shame, I would have loved to have heard what you said to those other two doppelgangers. She was under my control right until then, I didn't have enough power over her to use her for anything she really didn't want to do. But I did know she wanted revenge, so I just had to wait for an opportunity."

She tapped her chin.

"No, my plan is more straightforward. As I'm sure the three of you know, Virion is presently building up his forces and consolidating power-"

"Silence! I allow you to reveal Virions' plans!" One of the clerics suddenly shouted, stepping forward as he began to chant.

"Sos Seal, Sceenn, Sceenn, Sceenn." Casually, as if swatting a bug, she canceled the divine spell he was bringing and quickly shot him down with a hail of familiar-looking teardrop orbs.

Everyone froze, waiting for a fight to kick off, but the undead woman just kept speaking.

"As I was saying. Virion is presently building up his forces and consolidating power, I don't know..." She spoke, glaring down to the remaining clerics. "...too much about it. Outside of making him undead for him, I'm afraid."

"And besides, I'm pretty sure you know all that anyway. So, my big plan was simply this. I plan to kill these clerics, and raise them as wights, with the direct order to serve Virion before me. I suspect this will be enough to his liking that he'll allow the corpse to keep the original magic he loaned them."

"But..." Sol spoke, still confused. "Why?"

She shrugged. "Partly to see if it works, and partly because I'm tired of Elliot charming me whenever he wants to win in an argument. if it works, I'll kill him too and give him the same order."

"But... what if it doesn't work, surely your deity will be angry with you? And take whatever power he's given you?"

She laughed. "I don't work for power. I work to research. Worst case, I give Elliot the undead and say sorry. It's not like I'll tell him I planned to kill him."

She froze. "he's standing right behind me, isn't he?"

Argus blink. "What? No."

"Oh, thank the gods, that always happens in the books."

She looked behind her to be sure, then silently turned back to the crowd in front of her.

An awkward silence stretched.

"So, you're going to kill most of the only clerics that serve your god in the area?"

"What? No, just these six- well, two now."

"...This isn't most of them?"

"No, how do you not know this? The entire town is clerics; every last person inside the town presently has some of Virions loaned magic, albeit not much."

The trios mouths dried.

Sol could not help but ask, "How?"

"All this? That's what it's for, I really thought you guys knew about this, your group’s not doing super well at this."

As she spoke, a group of undead began to enter behind her, unlike the zombies before, these ones were armored and armored. Two of which had the glowing blue eyes of wights.

"Well, I feel like I could have given a better monologue, but first times." She shrugged.

"This is getting embarrassingly clumsy. So I'm going to kill you all now, then use you to kill that friend of yours who's been hunting my Wights, then your tribe."

"Wait, what, friend?" Sol asked, stepping backward as he did. Eyeing the new group of undead, which was quickly reinforced by the half dozen from the first battle.

"Oh? Did they not tell you? They have one of their kind out there slaying my hunters. It's really been driving me nuts!"

Argus hated this thing, if only for the contradictory, nonsensical, and outlandish things she spoke.

"She's lying."

"What? No, I'm not. You are!...Why are you lying?"

Asgar coughed and interrupted. "Argus... Edrik."

"Oh." His eyes widened. "...Yes, I am lying."

The undead woman blinked, turning between the two. Asgar could not help but take a moment of petty enjoyment from the woman being as confused as he had been.

"Wait...why are you guys here?"

Argus glared at the woman. "We came to rescue them!" he gestured with his blade to the prisoners kept in the stone cells in the walls of the room.

"Oh! You had friends in this caravan specifically?"

"No," Argus replied. "This one stole from us." he prodded Singard, who groaned.

The corpse woman seemed to deflate. "You're just here to get back your money?"

"No, we're here to save them."

"Oh, thank the gods, that would have been so boring."

She hesitated. "So... if we hadn't captured them.. would you just have ignored all this?"

Argus spoke slowly. "We would not have known if you hadn't captured them."

"So that other Drakon, he's hunting me down, and you didn't know about it?"

"I don't know what he's doing, we haven't talked in a while."

She sighed out slowly. "Okay, so to get everything straight, your tribe isn't waging some kind of holy war against my coworkers- that I've just betrayed, and myself because of Virion claiming to be the son of Tavig?"

"No." Asgar offered, "Though I feel like we should be now."

She groaned. "...That really takes the wind out of my sails. I won't lie."

Asgar raised a brow and a hand. "If it would make you feel better, I can formally declare war on you now one their behalf. So long as you agree to send them a messenger with a letter alerting them before declaration before launching an attack if and when you find them."

She narrowed her eyes at him. "You'd just be doing it to make sure they had a warning if you die here, and I rip their location from your mind."

"Yes, I am."

"....Yeah, okay, I'll take it. It makes for a good story."

"A story? You might enjoy this part then." Asgar spoke with a grunt, and pulled from his Mantle, snapping the chains holding Singard to the post, before dropping his spare handaxe in the man's lap.

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He turned and pointed at the two clerics. "Unless you two wish to die, go free the prisoners, we are outnumbered and will need their help."

He turned again, facing the smiling corpse. "You can have this one, Argus."

Argus smirked and pointed his sword forward, pulling his Sun into it once more and causing it to glow red again. "We, Asgar and Argus. Paladins of the Frozen scroll Battalion, declare a Holy War against this practitioner of necromancy! With all the authority vested in us, we so command!"

The woman threw back her head and laughed. "Yeah! That's what I'm talking about!" She looked at the undead around her, nearly three dozen in total, most armed and armored, and shouted out. "Charge!"

—-

It was only Argus's Sun that was and had been keeping the three men standing.

The uncomfortable, searing heat of it. It kept them awake, despite the exhaustion. They felt all the way to their bones.

It was not just the exhaustion of physical exertion. But also the physical pains and clouded thoughts that transpired in the tired mind.

The last time they had slept seemed like eons ago, despite the reality that it had only been just shy of two days.

Sol clapped his hands together, spreading them outward and shouting out. "Hear my cry, Lady ever Yearning. For-"

"Sos Seal." The voice bit through, stealing away the magic from his words and hands. A sense of smugness ; palpable as she did.

He did not have time to retort, verbal or otherwise. The charging undead slammed into the two Drakon.

They quickly began to fall back. Standing their ground would have yielded nothing but drowning in a torrent of undead. Spears prodded at the brothers, their shields absorbing most of them, yet some broke through the defense, only to skid off metallic scales with the shrieks of metal on metal.

Had their enemies been living, or had been a more exceptional form of undead, like the two wights commanding from the back. They may have already fallen. But, while horrifying to look upon, the simple undead leading the charge were fodder.

A zombie was usually a rotting corpse. And the natural result of them being corpses made them weaker as muscles rotted, less dexterous, and of course, far less intelligent than the living.

There was a reason no great necromancer had swept the world under their control, despite many trying with hoards of the undead that never stopped and never tired.

Still, despite these critical weaknesses, the fight was going poorly from the beginning.

As the three danced back, quickly catching up with the pair of once enemy clerics and Singard, who had not been given enough time to free any of the prisoners.

The group of six quickly found themselves being pushed up against one of the cell doors, the clerics and caravan guard hiding behind the Drakon twins.

They held the line, taking the hits that they could. The undead could not pierce their scales without committing to a full assault, which the two commanding wights seemed intent to avoid for the moment.

Argus shifted his stance, deflecting a spear that glanced off his shoulder as he lashed forward to push the undead back a step.

It was only thanks to the brothers tapping into each other's Auras that they could even force the undead to duck away, as the red hot sword and battle axe, empowered by the supernatural strength of Asgar’s oath would have enough power to slice off limbs.

These wounds would not prove fatal but they would help; the undead struggled to continue on as pieces rather than a whole. Worse still, the clerics could not punish this caution by launching an offensive with their spells, as any attempt to do so was quickly shot down by the entity dubbed 'snake.'

Sol hissed at the two worshippers of Virion. "Get this door open! They'll cut us apart if they decide to rush us."

The middle-aged woman fumbled with a key, trying multiple ones before throwing the door open and rushing inside after finding the right one, then freezing as she made eye contact with the prisoners. About a dozen were inside, most cowered back all the more, but many glared at the two clerics of Virion.

As the group funneled in, the brothers took up a guard in front of the now open doorway.

The undead had stopped their relentless, albeit slow assault. Now circling around the twins at a spear and a half distance.

Snake walked forward, that same smirk they had now seen three different faces wear, still present.

"Retreating? And here I was expecting some glorious last stand."

The brothers eyed the undead in front of them, debating their options silently as they were want to do.

A beat of silence followed before Asgar broke it. "Any chance we can make a deal to let the humans go?"

She shook her head, then stopped herself. "I'll give you the one you brought with you if you tell me what your Oaths are."

Sol answered for them. "No deal, I'm not going anywhere." And took the handaxe from Singard's hands, placing himself just behind the brothers.

Snake shrugged. "Best I can do I'm afraid, it's one thing to kill one of his clerics, it's quite another to barter away prisoners for something I want to know. Virion has claimed everyone in this room but myself, and you three. And I'm frankly far too attached to getting a pair of Drakon wights to replace one I lost to that friend of yours to extend the offer to you."

"Besides." She shrugged. "We are at war now, right?"

"I see." Asgar sighed, pointing his ax forward.

Snake smiled, then turned and began walking away. With a snap of her fingers, the many dead in the room rose once more.

The pile of the dead that had been sacrificed, from which she had drawn the body she was not using rose, as did the undead Asgar had 'slain' earlier.

The only ones who remained still and silent were the clerics they had fought moments before, which the newly reanimated undead quickly circled and began to gather up in one spot.

The brothers, who had been planning to hold the doorway to hold back the charging undead. Had the tables turned on them, as the undead instead held them back, surrounded with spears.

"What are you doing?" Asgar called.

"Oh, just seeing if my theory works!" She called back. "You two in there better hope it doesn't work, you might not die if it doesn't!" She laughed.

"Well, at least I won't be the one to kill you."

The prisoners in the cell turned and eyed the two clerics who had been sacrificing their group in so brutal a fashion.

Sol spoke before the situation could escalate. "Don't, she still has to kill them so Father Elliot doesn't find out she planned to kill him. We still need all the help we can get."

She called back. "Spoilsport!" Then continued about her work, as she did, the brothers made a handful of attempts to attack outward, and Sol even made an attempt to cast a spell, which was quickly shut down by the woman.

But due to the distance, the twins could find no way to attack or damage the undead without abandoning the door.

They did have some mild relief in the virtue that they now had time to arm the prisoners and clerics in the cell. The brothers were armed with five or so wooden javelins looted from the orcs they had fought, A fight which seemed like a lifetime ago now.

Now the groups were eyeing each other as the necromancer worked.

Argus signed to his brother by tapping his wrist and then crossing his throat, saying that 'time wasn't in their favor.'

Asgar pointed at the undead encircling them, and crossed his throat as well, 'Attacking was also not in their favor.'

Argus nodded, then held his sword up, balancing it one way then the other. 'Both are bad, which is worse.'

The undead stirred as they watched the various motions being carried out, but did not attempt to attack or intercede. And for once, Snake said nothing. Seemingly focusing on her work.

Asgar tapped his wrist, then pointed to the other cages they were now blocked from, and made a third throat-cutting motion. 'Given time, she'll kill the prisoners we can't protect.'

Their Oaths flared at that, they'd have to attack soon. Otherwise, Snake would kill the prisoners. And even if the brothers we're not the type to care for other's lives, she'd use the prisoner's bodies as undead soldiers to overwhelm them all the more.

Before they could commit, however, Asgar tapped his brother's shoulder. He pointed to the undead and slowly counted down with his fingers.

It took Argus a moment, but he gathered the meaning. 'Where are the rest of them?'

This creature, and the clerics, had been killing and raising as undead all the members of the town who were now absent.

They'd done the same to every caravan that had come through.

So how was it that only a four dozen or so were now in front of them. A fourth of which had only just now been made into an undead.

It didn't make sense to the brothers. But, they didn't have too much time to waste theorizing the why of it, beyond preparing for the terrifying possibility that an army of zombies was waiting just around the corner. They didn't put it past this strange woman who acted as if this whole thing was a game to her to do just that.

They were trapped, and she was attempting to bring back the clerics with their power intact.

Argus-eyed door, they nodded to his brother.

He shouted to Sol as he charged forward, bating away spears. "Sol! Hold the door!"

He covered the ground with a leap and lunged forward with his longsword, stabbing into the forehead of one of the closest zombies. Before raising his shield and using it to leverage the blade through the skull, tearing through the right eye and brain matter and cleaving a gash through the zombie.

The force of the strike caused it to fall in the direction he'd withdrawn the blade from, but Argus knew it still wasn't dead, just disabled.

But with damage to its brain to this extent, it would hopefully be unable to command its body to do anything.

"High!"

He ducked low and turned as the whoosh of a hammer sailed over his head. One of the two wights had joined the fight. Both actually, he noted, as he saw his brother retreat from the short spear, the other was wielding.

Unlike the zombies, the wights were truly a threat. Made more dangerous, as opposed to weaker.

A Wight was just as intelligent as it had been when it was alive, albeit the person they once were was long gone.

And where a zombie was often weaker and slower than the living, Wights were often in reverse, stronger and quicker then they'd been in life.

The wights they were fighting were orcs. They must have been considerably dangerous in life. For while they were smaller than the orc raid leader that the brothers had fought, It was not by much.

"Can you make up your mind on if we're fighting or not?" Snake spoke, with a vague sense of exasperation, before standing while brushing herself off.

Sol aimed a hand outward, speaking, "Hear my cry, Lady ever Yearning."

"Sos Seal" Snake wove her own spell, and it reached forward, attempting to steal the power from Sol's words.

But it found none to steal, for he'd weave none of his own into the words spoken.

"Oh? Out of Favor now, are we?" Snake called gloating.

He kept his hand raised and called out. "Oh, My Goddess of Illumination! Bring these wretched souls a holy cremation!"

"I'm not going to fall for that- oh shit." She ducked as a ray of fire and heat blasted into the wall behind her.

The other two rays of heat slammed into the wights. Unprepared for the attack, they didn't dodge and suffered the consequences for it.

Argus's opponent had a considerable hole burned through his leg muscle and fell to a knee as a result.

Argus shifted forward, slashing down with his blade and cutting the orcs right limb off as it tried and failed to duck away.

Asgar's took the blast to the throat, and while it did not sever its head, it may as well have. As it found it was no longer able to control the body, it was only attached to by twin strips of flesh.

Snakes stolen eyes narrowed at Sol. "You...Sceenn, Sceenn, Sceenn!"

Sol yelped, ducking behind the door as the teardrop-shaped orbs of magical force slammed into the door, beginning to crack the wood.

"Slow the Drakon!" Snake called, and suddenly the undead around her she'd be using as assistants charged, supporting their spear-wielding comrades.

She turned back to the corpses and began to chant, the magic words deeper and darker than the spell words she'd been using to conjure up spells against them.

The spear-wielding zombies rushed at Argus, forcing him to retreat as the wight struggled back to its feet, hopping from the damage caused to its limb.

Asgar leaped to his brother's side, and as a pair, both of them began to push forward through the wall of spears set against them.

Then the second tide of Snake's minions hit, they ducked under their compatriot's spears and bodily rushed the two brothers, who swung their weapons in great cleaving motions as they scythed through the group.

Another three rays of heat flashed outward, cutting a pair of burning holes through the body snake had possessed. With the third shooting beside her head, as she ducked to the side.

She kept speaking, her cadence unchanging even as flames began to lick up the body she wore.

"Ardú, ardú, dauðr ok hverfa."

"I Don't know what she's doing, but you better stop it!" Sol cried, blasting at her again.

She only seemed to duck or weave if it targeted her head or throat. Otherwise, she stood unmoving and burned.

"Ardú, ardú, bonds won eigi enn hverfa."

The undead hung off the brothers, trying to grapple and pull them back. Still, they marched forward, shifting the zombies like shields to absorb the strikes from their spear-wielding comrades.

"Ardú, ardú, duty bonð til goðr enn born."

Sol found himself pulling and wisps of divine Favor, and swallowed, rushing forward ax in hand.

The limping wight watched the two brothers approach, a single-arm using the hammer as a crutch.

"Ardú, ardú, heyr hans words fyrst."

A zombie stabbed its spear into Asgar's leg. The zombies weighed down on him, bringing him to the ground as he struggled and grappled with the five or so zombies clawing and biting at him, failing to get through scales.

"Ardú, ardú, ok minn annarr."

The final words were like a hammer upon the minds of all present, even to the undead. Pain spiking through the minds of all watching.

"I think I outdid myself this time." Snake spoke.

The balding man, who'd been executing members of the caravan slowly rose, his skin pale from death.

His eyes were open, and they glowed blue.