It felt like she had just gotten to sleep when Lae was woken by a hushed whisper. Someone was speaking to her father. Cracking open her eyes, the low flame of the campfire illuminated the visitor’s red-feathered headdress.
Orimo’s low rumble of a voice responded.
“Are you sure?” he said.
The other speaker shifted, turning to look at Lae, uncertain he wanted to speak where she might hear. Lae hurriedly closed her eyes to appear asleep.
“Lae, you can sit up,” her father said. “And go on, she needs to hear this.”
Of course she couldn’t trick her father. As Lae pushed aside her blankets, she couldn’t help but wonder what was going on. The last news they heard was that a pack of ghouls was laying siege to the Refuge, and that they killed one of the scouts Orimo sent. Nobody had been happy to hear that. No one yet knew if the villagers of Boling had survived or not.
“Yes. I counted eight of them, but there may be more,” said the hunter. “They are still ten minutes out if they continue at the pace they were moving. And… the masked one was at the front, Hunt-Leader. It matched the description.”
Grunting, Orimo shifted his weight to his good leg and stood. “It must have followed Kye back here. Rouse the camp.”
A thrill of fear shot through Lae at the mention of the masked ghoul. This was one of the creatures the surviving scout, Kye, had spoken of. This monster appeared to lead the other ghouls with the intelligence of a human.
For some reason, she couldn’t help but equate the Branded monster she encountered in the cave with this masked ghoul. Were they one and the same? She hoped so—she didn’t want to imagine that there were two such horrible monsters roaming around.
- - -
Vanalath tugged at the wool scarf covering his face. The rough cloth had a bad habit of snagging on twigs, but for the sake of the plan, he had to put up with it, if only for a short while.
They waited in the ditches, hidden under leaves and branches, listening to the noises made by the desolate wind blowing down from the high passes. It came from the mountain peaks, swirling down through the countless chasms that opened up between the ridges. As this icy gust forced its way around towering cliff faces miles above them, the eerie sound that the necromancer called the Mountain’s Lament was born.
Once or twice on the hike here, Vanalath looked up searchingly, but he was always unable to tell just how far the peaks above him reached. He thought that perhaps he would be able to tell after the climb, but even after a three hour hike, there wasn’t a discernible difference. There was simply no frame of reference by which to judge these mountains.
The excitement of the undead around him felt muted. With over a hundred of them gathered, the energy that should have raced from ghoul to ghoul with abandon was weaker than expected. This stifling sensation could be attributed to the control of the necromancer: with their every action strictly regulated, they were unable to reach a frenzy. Even when the wind brought with it the distant scent of humans, not a single undead so much as twitched.
Well, save for Anamu.
By his side, the young undead fidgeted with his mask, uncomfortable with the restrictive object. It was understandable that a ghoul bearing the Brand of Gluttony would dislike being unable to bite freely, but Vanalath still commanded him to stop. They’d received plenty of warning of the capabilities of their enemy. Noise, smell, and sight had to be kept to a minimum. The Children of the Mountain didn’t have the same eyesight as ghouls, but they could see in the dark to a limited extent. Right now, even their heads were covered so that their yellow eyes wouldn’t reflect torchlight.
They had been lying here for half an hour, waiting by the side of a dirt path that wound down from the northeastern pass. The camp of the hunters was a fifteen minute trek uphill. Their undead army didn’t get any closer out of fear of being spotted by a wide-ranging scout, but that didn’t mean they were waiting for morning. No, the necromancer wasn’t about to throw away the advantage of a nighttime attack. Vanalath, without turning his head to look, could sense her location behind and far above, tucked away in a tiny cave along the cliffside. From her vantage point, she could watch the road for hundreds of yards in either direction. She didn’t explain how she was seeing in the dark, but neither did Vanalath ask.
The crack of a twig alerted him that something was making their way down the path. The smell soon confirmed the presence of new ghouls. A voice shouted from further up the road—pursuers, close behind.
Vanalath’s eyes narrowed, and he listened as the first set of feet passed by, followed by a second and a third. These were the remnants of the small force the necromancer had sent into the human camp. When the decoy leader was killed or when their numbers reached half, they had been told to retreat back down the path. It sounded like only five or six survived to make it this far out of the thirteen ghouls that had been sent. They were necessary sacrifices.
The necromancer’s plan was mercilessly efficient, though it had been almost entirely concocted on the fly during the walk here. She intended to use the information the hunters had gained about Vanalath against them. The attack was just as much a psychological one as it was a physical one.
One of the fleeing ghouls staggered just as it approached Vanalath’s position and fell to the ground. The hunters approached, slowing slightly as they came across the figure on the path. A few thuds rang out as they executed it, and then the men moved on, deeper into the waiting ambush.
The lure had been cast, and the hunters bit down like clueless fish, not realizing that the harder they bit, the deeper the hook sank. Not a single one questioned why a lone ghoul fell over despite suffering no attacks.
With their poor sense of smell, the humans wouldn’t realize. The sickly-sweet aroma of death permeated everything around them, but they would think it was because of the lone ghoul they killed. By the time they discovered that the scent was only getting stronger, it would be too late.
More footsteps followed behind executioners. Vanalath, listening intently, made out their number to be a little under twenty. It was certainly overkill for a few fleeing ghouls, but a marvelous result for them. When the last pair of feet softly thudded by, a silent pulse rippled through the ranks of undead. Though the power of the necromancer’s amulet had no sway over Vanalath, he recognized the signal.
The three Branded rose to their feet, and all up and down the road, the lesser ghouls followed suit.
- - -
Lae was shocked at how easily the ghouls had been defeated. Over a dozen of them had charged into camp, eager for blood, but all they tasted was a hail of arrows and stones. The masked one stuck to the rear, directing its subordinates, but that had ended as soon as Orimo’s well-placed shot pierced the thing’s head. At that point, the others all broke ranks, fleeing the way they had come.
Five escaped, despite receiving wounds that would have killed a man. With the leader dead, the risk was minimal, and a pursuit was soon organized. Nearly half the uninjured hunters went after them, under strict orders not to pursue beyond horn-calling range, or about two miles from the camp. Orimo stayed behind, in no condition to run after ghouls on his bad leg.
Lae wandered the camp, offering water to the men who sat around, nursing various scrapes and bruises. In this fight, they had outnumbered the ghouls three-to-one, and were far more organized and geared. Nobody had died in the assault. Despite that, none of the men looked happy. And how could they? This was her third time encountering ghouls—the first being in Yayu, and the second in the cave—and she still felt her stomach twisting horribly at the sight of former neighbors turned into walking abominations. These were their fellow Children of the Mountain, not some invasive monster from realms beyond.
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A few hunters simply broke down after seeing a former friend among them, and Orimo didn’t scold them. An aura of grief and grim resolve seemed to suffuse the camp.
Though she shared in their grief, Lae also felt a spark of hope ignite inside her. Perhaps they could do this. The hunters were capable and prepared. Maybe she wouldn’t even need to leave for the Enclave in the morning, like her father had planned. She could help the men, giving them water and tending to the fires, along with other simple chores. She could make herself useful.
If things kept going like this, she wouldn’t need to leave her father’s side. She’d bring it up in the morning—right now was the wrong time.
Orimo, from his position by the center campfire, called out to one of the hunters. “Kye, come here.”
“What is it, Hunt-Leader?” asked the thin scout as he trotted over.
“You mentioned that Kalaki was one of the ghouls who pursued you outside the Refuge? That he killed Mele?”
Kye grimaced. “I… I didn’t get a great look. When we split up, we’d hoped that one of us would make it back. I didn’t think that Mele—that he would choose to run slower. He was faster than me, and he knew it. He could have left me behind.”
“No one is blaming you. I’m asking for confirmation.” Orimo’s voice was grim. “Was it Kalaki or not?”
There was a short silence as Kye screwed up his eyes, struggling to remember the scene.
“He had a spear, Hunt-Leader,” he finally said, a hint of bitterness in his voice. “By the time I turned back to check on Mele, I was too far to make out any faces. I saw the spearman stab him in the chest, and I—I just kept running.”
Orimo, without responding, limped over to the pile of corpses on the ground. First, he stopped by the fallen ghoul leader and, using the limb of his bow, removed its frowning mask. When Lae saw the unfamiliar, unmarked face, her heart dropped to her stomach. It had no Brand. That meant the other one was still out there.
Her father went around to each of the fallen ghouls, observing their appearances and the few weapons they had brought with them. They were mostly shoddy tools, used for farming or fishing. He paused for a long while, observing the form of a ghoul who had carried a spear with him, the only true weapon among the gathered implements. His eyes narrowed into thin slits. Then, turning to Kye, he spoke.
“Is it possible, back in Boling, that the masked one wasn’t commanding the ghoul that killed Mele?”
Kye said, “I don’t think so Hunt-Leader. It made some sort of noise, and the other monsters started moving. The whole time, it just stood there, watching us.”
Orimo went silent for a long moment. Lae recognized the look on his face. It was the same look he gave when he heard that a tribe of goats had moved in nearby, completely out of season, disrupting the Balance. He’d pieced things together and discovered that a wandering monster was behind it, though at the time he hadn’t expected it to be the One-Horned Goat.
“Something isn’t right,” he said. “Sound the horn. Call back the pursuing force at once.”
Kye ran off to do as he was bidden. Lae approached her father, who rolled his bowstring between his thumb and forefinger as he peered down the darkened path that descended into the Cradle. His eyes appeared to glow with a faint blue light, but it might have been a trick of the light.
“Papa, what’s going on? What’s wrong?”
He turned to face her, his forehead lined with worry, and the phantom light faded. He spoke, more to himself than to his daughter.
“Kye might have discounted it as meaningless, but I don’t think that’s the case. My instincts are screaming at me. The ghoul lying here,” he said, gesturing at the spear-bearing monster, “lacked any sort of skill with the spear. It treated it as more of a club. How could this monster have been the one that killed Mele? That man was a true hunter, trained at the Enclave. No, I think Mele’s murderer is still out there. Others, too. If the masked ghoul tracked us here, who is to say the spear-wielder isn’t close behind? I only hope we aren’t too late.”
- - -
[Level increased] x 2
Strength + 2
Agility + 2
[Level increased] x 3
Strength + 2
Agility + 3
Dexterity + 1
Vanalath wiped his blade clean on the tunic of a slain hunter. The fight had been somewhat disappointing, really. Outnumbered ten-to-one and with the advantage of surprise, it couldn’t really be called a battle. Their own losses were minimal, with only four lesser ghouls getting cut down in exchange for fifteen hunters.
Including the sacrificial ghouls that had been sent ahead, their total losses numbered thirteen. One of them had been evolved: the decoy who served as a stand-in for Vanalath. That sacrifice had been necessary for the plan to succeed, as a lesser ghoul lacked the intelligence to even pretend to lead other ghouls. All told, it was an auspicious outcome, especially when accounting for the difference in combat potential between a hunter and a lesser ghoul. If twice as many ghouls had died, it still wouldn’t have been a bad result.
Now there were one hundred twenty-eight of them versus approximately one-fifth that number of humans. A five-to-one advantage. It wasn’t as overwhelming as before, and certainly there would be losses as an ambush was no longer possible, but the gains that a victory brought would outnumber those losses. Even now, several undead had fallen into that unconscious state that signaled an evolution.
The fight had also served to confirm something. Vanalath had killed two men, and now that the noise of combat had died down, he listened intently. Was it a hallucination, or had two new accusatory voices joined the chorus of whispers in his mind?
This… could be a problem.
Just then, the distant call of a horn echoed down the mountainside, breaking the stillness. A second followed shortly afterwards.
He listened for a third, but instead, a laughing voice from behind him spoke up.
“They’re calling dead men. Had the signal been sent but five minutes earlier, they might have been spared.”
Vanalath turned to watch as the necromancer—who had scaled down the cliff on a rope—picked up a horn off the ground from where it had fallen from a hunter’s limp hand. The desperate man had been attempting to use it as the ghouls closed in, but Anamu ripped open his neck before he could even bring the instrument to his lips.
She dusted it off, inhaled, and blew a clear and exquisite note, followed by a second. After mimicking the other call, she tossed the device to Vanalath.
“Here. It might be useful later, so hold onto it for me.”
He hooked it onto his belt.
“They will be expecting the return of those men shortly,” she said. “I’m afraid we cannot wait for these ghouls to evolve now. If we linger too long, that would be the same as allowing Orimo to dictate the course of battle, which can never be allowed. We’d be toyed with and killed before ever reaching them. Vanalath and Anamu, I want you far in the front as scouts. If you come across a lone hunter before we reach the camp, you must silence him. But the instant you see the first light of a campfire, return to the main force immediately.”
Vanalath nodded, accepting the need for caution.
It was time to begin Phase Two.
- - -
Earlier that night, during the march to the northeastern pass, the necromancer had spoken to Vanalath regarding the plan.
“Our greatest bit of luck is this: when the hunters arrived this afternoon, Whiskers discovered that Orimo was injured, limping behind the others on a bad leg.”
There was that name again—Orimo. This wasn’t the first time he heard it spoken.
“He is a Branded, like yourself,” she continued. “But the difference is that he is at the third Tier. Under normal circumstances, I’d imagine him comparable to a Tier 4 Branded, but now that he is hurt, he shouldn’t be quite that formidable.”
Vanalath had recently learned that he himself was at the second Tier. The gulf that existed between him at Tier 1 and him currently was a wide one. And this Orimo was a Tier above him? He was an intimidating figure.
“You three,” she said, pointing at Vanalath, Kalaki, and Anamu in turn, “have one job during the second phase of this plan: killing Orimo. If that cannot be managed quickly, the fight will likely turn sour. The hunters all wear different headdresses, denoting their rank. Orimo’s is the only four-colored one: red, yellow, orange, and white. His appearance besides is distinctive. He is short and dark-skinned for a Yaranian, though still lighter than me. He will likely wield a bow, though at closer range he has access to daggers and throwing knives. Allow our weaker ghouls to approach first and draw his attention. Then, close in for the kill. Be careful not to reveal your strength before that. Hang to the back, or he may slay you before you have a chance to reach him. Do you understand?”
As he heard her explanation, an odd exhilaration came over Vanalath. The more powerful she made Orimo sound, the more determined he became. He hadn’t been able to truly test how much stronger he’d become since the fight with Iokina.
Seeing his mistress waiting for an answer, he gave a sharp nod.
Fine. He’d do the smart thing, waiting until the perfect opening to strike. Still, a part of Vanalath hoped that it wouldn’t be that easy. It was a strange dichotomy that existed within him: eagerness and restraint warring with one-another. How much could he grow by throwing himself into another life-and-death battle?
“Remember, even injured, Orimo can turn the tide of this battle himself. There is no assurance of victory, especially now that they suspect something. Your task is of vital importance, Vanalath, so do your best. If I’m forced to use my last resort, nobody will be happy.”