Morning was cold in the highlands, dew collecting on long bladed grasses and tiny frost crystals filling the cracked soil. Two men travelled the dirt roads on horseback, light leather and chain armour covering their bodies, shortswords at their waists and bows at their backs.
“Were you awake to hear it?” One asked the other, a young man with a cleft chin.
“Not really.” The other replied, a slightly older man with closely shaven hair. “I was sound asleep in my bunk when it woke me up, so I only got the end bits.”
“Augustin was awake; he said it was proper scary. He’d never heard anything like it before.” The scout’s jaw worked behind closed lips, like he was weighing whether to keep talking. “The commander seemed worried as well.”
“Someone must have seen it right? Something that loud must be either really big or really close by.” The garrison was at one of the highest reachable points in the whole kingdom, making the possible line of sight extremely large.
“If someone saw something already, why would they be sending us?” Seeing things and reporting back was their whole purpose.
The highland sloped down before them, rough rocky landscape garnished with mosses, grass, lichen, and tiny flowers. Every so often, a tree would be seen standing tall by its lonesome, giving shelter to a guardian elk or perch to a few ravens.
When a stretch of smoother land opened to their left, a trio of pebblings could be seen wandering together, feeling around for just the right piece of gravel. The little golems were barely formed, their constituent pieces scattering when they tripped, only to slowly roll back in place a few seconds later.
Throughout the whole journey, the mountains of Avram Iaur towered at their backs, a great barrier of ice and stone that caught the clouds and the rain before they escaped to the other side of the world. Sloping spurs and ridges funnelled the water through numerous brooks, creeks, and streams, eventually emptying all of it back into the lakes below. The main road south followed one such stream, providing a constant pleasant trickle as a companion for travellers and traders.
“Hey.” One of the scouts spoke up, breaking through the sounds of nature. “When we were leaving, did you take a look at Krod?”
The younger scout turned to his senior, brows furrowing. They saw Krod every single day, it wasn’t exactly a wonder of the world. “No, Why?”
“…Still as a grave.” Came the answer, killing the peaceful mood with all the severity of a medic’s diagnosis.
The elder scout’s eyes never broke from the horizon. “I think they know what it was.”
Silence returned, cold and heavy with uncertainty, the landscape passing them by no longer an adequate distraction from the reality of what they were doing.
The orcs would tell them nothing, resentful of their occupation and close guard. Maybe someone could have combed through transcriptions of orc stories for a hint of what to expect, but there just wasn’t enough time. Direct observation was the only way to know what they knew, despite the peril that put them in.
Halfway down the mountainous road, something other than grass and moss and rocks became visible in the distance: a long line of figures filing one by one. No specific details could be made out from so far away, but they at least seemed vaguely person shaped. They were walking in the opposite direction of Bearwood, not hurridley like they were fleeing, but still with a purpose.
“Did something happen to the town?”
Maneuvering around the rocks and down the hill, they approached the evacuees, hoping to offer assistance, but a closer look made it clear that these people were beyond help.
Skeletons, hundreds of them- functionally an army, marching forth with malicious intent. Some had their empty skulls filled with gold, gemstones plugging up their eye sockets so the coins wouldn’t spill out; some wore expensive looking accessories, carrying shining ceremonial weapons in their free hands.
It was as if an entire kingdom’s worth of nobles had risen from the grave, abandoning their tombs and bringing all of their interred wealth with them.
The horses were not happy with this discovery, refusing to take a single step more and actively fighting against their riders, squealing all the while. It took returning back up the hill for the animals to calm, still not happy, but no longer prepared to bolt and abandon the two men to monsters.
“What’s the plan? Call for backup?” The younger scout asked, nervously looking between his comrade and the undead horde. The army ignored the crossroad leading north, instead choosing to follow the road that descended the highlands and continued into the rest of the kingdom.
“Yes, we need to warn the commander.” The senior agreed, climbing off his horse and doing a gear check. “Go, now. I’m gonna take a closer look on foot.”
“Alone? You know if you get cut down, we’ll have one more enemy to deal with.” The young soldier clenched his jaw, a tendon in his temple flexing. “I don’t think any of our boys have had to fight one of their own kind before. I don’t know how many could handle it.”
“If I mess up, I won’t be one of their own anymore.” Reminded his comrade, matching the grave expression. “Now go, and don’t come back unless it’s with the rest.”
The two scouts saluted each other silently and went their separate ways.
Staying out of sight was fairly easy, given the rugged terrain and plethora of grasses tall and short to hide in, but skeletons were hard to discern the strength of and so he had no idea at what distance these ones could sense the living. With every range threshold the scout passed, tension gradually released from his body, until the lack of response became suspicious. No matter how close he got, the undead continued forward unperturbed, bringing the tension back full force.
They were ignoring him.
Crouched low behind a lichen covered outcrop as far forward as he felt comfortable, the scout peeked his eyes over the edge.
There was someone standing just off the road, watching the skeletons march with no fear. A ripped and ragged brown cloak was draped over their back, stained by mud and filth. When the wind brushed past the cloak fluttered, revealing the rest of their blood splattered body.
‘Another undead? Maybe the necromancer behind this?’ He thought, reaching for his shortsword. Were they able to sense him and were just ignoring him like the others? If so, they might attack as soon as he tried to leave; If not, he might have the chance to cripple the invasion here and now.
“So that’s what that noise was.” A woman’s voice pulled him from his mind. In the time he had been warring with himself over what to do, the figure had turned around.
A woman. Red eyes, pallid skin; a look of joyless exhaustion on her face that went down to the soul.
“V-Vampire!?” The scout jolted, dropping his sword and stumbling back. A single zombie he could manage, a necromancer maybe, but a blood sucker was way out of his league.
The woman flinched back at the accusation, her miserable frown deepening into hate.
“You shut your fucking mouth.” She demanded. “These past couple days have been some of the worst of my life; I don’t need you assholes rubbing salt in my wounds.”
“You… you’re a servant of evil; I have-“
“NO I’M NOT!” A blade suddenly swung in his direction, making a terrible noise as it clipped the stone. The high pitched sound travelled far, flowing over the hills and reverberating off mountains.
…
It was quiet after the echoes faded, the silence so complete as to lack even the rhythmic sound of calcified footsteps.
‘No no no…’
Lucia slowly turned her neck, glancing back at the stalled procession with anxiety, only to find every single skeleton staring back. The lights in their empty sockets burned bright, boring into her with something like judgement or interest.
Only a moment later, as if stoked by the fire in their eyes, the scars in Lucia’s shoulder flared to life.
A chill of terror shot down her spine. She knew what the feeling was; it was the very first thing Ilya had warned her about.
The beast was watching. She was being evaluated.
Panic ripped through Lucia’s mind, willing her weapon to point directly at the scout’s head. “Leave!” She shouted, shakily pulling out her other dagger. “Or you’re joining the line!”
As the temperature in her scars increased, memories of the acts that placed them there flashed through her mind. Her entire body was trembling, the fear of reliving that pain overriding all else.
It wasn’t her fault; she was protecting the gold like she had been ordered to.
It wasn’t her fault; she was only doing her job.
It wasn’t her fault; she just wanted a friend.
‘It’s not my fault… I just wanted to be more like-‘
The brand cooled again, the weight of the dragon’s gaze lifting off her back as suddenly as it arrived. Lucia was left suffocating, struggling to take even the tiniest breaths.
When her breathing steadied and her blurry vision resolved itself, the scout was already gone, a quick cast of [ Longstride ] carrying him far away. Behind her, the skeletons once again faced forward, slowly walking in sync like nothing had ever happened.
Lucia’s weapons slipped from her hands, clattering against the ground. She sank down into a crouch next to them, holding onto her own shoulders as if that would stop the shaking.
It had been years since she felt like this: angry and hopeless and so very scared. She had been a child of fifteen then, sent off into the world alone for reasons she couldn’t understand.
So much blood and sweat and tears had been spent in the decade after to build something resembling a decent life, even if that life was never a particularly happy or stable one. Everywhere she went, there was always someone who found a problem with her; always someone who thought her something to be belittled or reviled or feared. Rumours would spread, people would whisper behind her back and warp the stories until someone eventually acted on them. All of this despite her attempts to avoid interacting with anyone.
At least when things got bad back then she could always run.
Not this time.
Once again her life was over.
Her teary eyes refocused on the dirt road in front of her, looking for any loose coin or flake of gold that slipped through finger bones. If the undead lost even a single rivet on the way down the cliff there would be punishment, things that would make what happened to her arm look like a scraped knee in comparison.
It wasn’t long before the thumping of hooves alerted her to a large skeletal animal approaching- a direboar. Ilya was visible between its ribs, lounging comfortably in the empty chest cavity atop a bed of furs, bundled clothes, and filled bags. The beast was only supposed to be used to transfer treasure at first, but when the gruelling length of the hike began to sink in, the street rat climbed aboard and never left, claiming she didn’t need breaks that way.
“Everyone stopped moving for a little bit, did something happen?” Ilya asked, peeking through the bones. “I felt our Lady looking at us too.”
Lucia really wasn’t in the mood to speak with anyone, but Ilya was that thing’s second in command and she didn’t want to be accused of hiding anything from it. “…Some guy got too close.” She eventually grumbled, trying her hardest to not let any weakness seep into her voice.
“And?” Ilya pressed, staring at her with those bizarre grey eyes.
“And I scared him off.”
The fledgling cult leader took a while to respond. “…Okay. Did anything fall out yet?”
“No.”
“Even when everyone suddenly stopped?”
“Yes.”
Ilya fell silent again, looking around her blasphemous carriage before returning to face her coworker. “…You know you’re free to get in here with me.” She suggested offhandedly. “Your feet would hurt less.”
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“I’m not doing that!” Lucia snapped, the fury in her eyes dulled by tears. After everything she had done- everything her dragon had done, Ilya still acted like they were buddies; like the only thing that could possibly be upsetting her friend was a few hours of walking. It was infuriating and confusing.
It had always been an act hadn’t it? A false guise of friendship that was meant to lure her into the den of evil. What point was there then, to continue the charade when she was already bound in chains?
“Just leave me alone.” She spat, hugging herself tighter as she continued to watch the ground.
“…Okay. But remember you still have work to do.” Ilya reminded her, settling back into the comfortable pile. “I’m going to the front. You can follow the back when it gets here.”
With a few taps to the spine, her boar began moving again, a walk turning into a trot turning into a full charge, finally carrying her out of sight.
Lucia was left by the roadside, breathing deep to calm her roiling stomach and stinging eyes.
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Walking through the dawn and into midday, the caravan of bone and precious metal slowly closed in on their destination. The sloping hill, eroded by rivers and streams, led them down to the shores of Lake Maria where the turned to follow the beach westward.
The highland towered to their right, grey stone walls extending upwards to the clouds, appearing as if they were the only thing that held up the sky. The stretch of coastline between the water and the cliffs was verdant at first, lush with shrubs and reeds and grasses, but when they drew within a few kilometres of the dragon’s den the terrain suddenly changed.
Death and devastation and rot. From a point onward, that was all there was. Black splinters of once brown wood blended with dark soil and withered grass, only the largest trees remaining intact at all, left to collapse under their own weight. Shrivelled corpses littered the shore, the creatures’ skeletons still covered with skin and hair, like their insides had instantly aged a century with no time for the rest of the body to react.
“Oh, this is like what happened at the swamp…” Ilya mused aloud as the procession continued through the wasteland. “Our Lady was so furious; everything around her just started dying.”
Something dropped in Lucia’s chest and she was once again filled with a mixture of terror and frustration. It was bad enough that the dragon was physically unbeatable, was the ability to kill without touch really necessary? How had the world survived so long with monsters like that in it?
Further up the coast the damage got even worse, the ground upturned and ripped apart like a farmer’s field after the last harvest. There were no ploughs or rakes here, no oxen to work the land, only a creature of chaos sowing death by the clawful.
The trenches went on for hundreds of metres, dark fluid pooling like blood in open wounds, a mixture of lake water, mud, and life’s last dregs.
Lucia could see the dragon’s lair now, the shadows of its depths slowly taking up more and more of her field of view the closer she got. It was only just the other day she argued with that random sailor about what the darkness contained, but that might as well have been a lifetime ago; she knew with certainty what was waiting for her now and it was not a siren’s love song.
Murky maroon water flowed from the cave’s mouth, the familiar scent of viscera joining the stench of the rotting coast in her nose. Wicked thorn bushes and tangling vines fed on the bloody runoff, growing and spreading up the cliff face like an infestation.
Coming to a stop before her Lady’s lair, Ilya hopped out of the boar’s ribcage, pointing wordlessly to a spot near the cliff where it could stay in standby.
“Okay everyone!” She addressed the undead caravan, clapping two hands together in front of her chest and holding them there. “Back in those rows again! When our Lady okay’s us, we’ll get started unloading!”
Praying she was no longer needed, Lucia silently turned and walked back up the coast, finding a large boulder some distance away to rest her exhausted mind and body. Blankly staring across the lake, her head and neck tilted forward slowly, eventually reaching past the tipping point to collapse into her waiting palms.
A soft wind came ashore, blowing away some of the rot and replacing it with crisp morning air. She drew in a slow deep breath, holding it for a time before letting out a shuddery sigh. If she just stayed like this, with her eyes closed and the breeze blowing, she could pretend it was all okay- pretend that she was a normal person with normal problems.
Gentle waves lapped at her perch at the water’s edge, echoes of the day-to-day of distant vessels, hints of other lives so divorced from her now doubly cursed existence. Sitting there in silence, she could almost begin to smell the salt of the sea on the breeze, almost hear the cries of seagulls soaring freely above her; almost pretend she had never left home.
Almost.
The wind shifted again, the returning stench of the rotting shore shattering her delusions with the cold slap of reality.
“Right.” She breathed, finally lifting her head from her hands and casting her gaze out across the lake again. Home was long behind her; by now that salty sea was hundreds of kilometres and a dozen burnt bridges away. Even if she could have returned there before, she definitely couldn’t now, chained to a monster. It would never be okay again.
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When all of the skeletons were once again arranged in neat military columns, Ilya found herself smiling. She had never held any power over anyone before- never had anyone listen to her before, but now here she was, leading a cult and ordering undead hordes around. The control… it felt good.
Unbuckling her rucksack from the ribs of her boar, Ilya stuck her arms through the loops and fastened it to her back. It was a lot lighter than before, the clothes and linens lining her transport, much of the food eaten, and all of the money offloaded onto undead.
The mouth of her Lady’s new lair yawned before her, the light of the sun reaching as far within as it could before inevitably being swallowed by blackness. She was always going to have fond feelings for that swamp, the rustling of the canopy, the creaking of branches and the softness of the mud, but her new home seemed promising too.
There was a thin strip of dry land on the right side of the tunnel, just wide enough for a single person to walk along. Ilya was fine with getting her feet wet, but it might be useful for the skeletons; she knew from experience that wet stone made for unsteady ground and it would be bad if a skeleton fell over and dropped everything.
Sloshing into the main chamber, Ilya found the newly crowned Lady of the Lake in the centre of her lair, channelling some sort of spell on a pile of bodies. They all looked kind of smashed, like they had fallen from a great height. Was this what remained of the zombies that had followed her?
Occasional flashes from the spell allowed Ilya to see other corpses spread about the grotto, zombies in similar states of ruin as well as a stack of larger bones that had been tossed against the wall. If the size hadn’t been enough of a giveaway, the shape of the skeleton and the horns protruding from its skull made the species of the remains unmistakable.
The ribs were still slightly red- freshly picked clean.
“You finally showed up.” Lady Visnavik stated in greeting, jade eyes remaining focused on her magic. “You brought everything I presume?” One of her hands flexed closed, shadows condensing around the bodies as a large magic circle faded into existence beneath them.
“Yes my Lady, right down to the last coin.” The dragon’s slave replied with a bow, suddenly feeling anxious. “T-The undead are outside waiting to reform your horde.” The last time Ilya had properly spoken with her Lady, she had been angry and disappointed. Was she still?
“I… I also brought as much of everything else as I could. The bone piles were gone but some of the shards were still there and I remembered you saying they were useful so I didn't want them to go to waste…” The little cultist’s fingers tangled with each other nervously as she rambled and justified herself.
“The bone piles?” The dragon puffed dismissively. “Where did you think all of those undead came from, hm? They are the bone piles.”
Ilya blinked. She honestly never thought about that. She had been too focused on sharing her love of the black dragon and then too focused on moving the dragon’s treasures to think about that.
Lady Visnavik had raised undead from the bone piles before, but only when she was close enough to see them. As the dragon had abandoned the swamp, the connection between the two things was broken in Ilya’s mind. The zombies showed up chasing Lucia and she just accepted their existence without question.
“I admit, I did not expect the process to occur so rapidly, nor for the resulting army to attack that little town.” A pleased smirk curled the dragon’s lips, her eyes reflecting the patterns of the magic circle. “Perhaps I underestimated the resentment I am capable of inspiring.”
Ilya tilted her head in confusion. “Resentment, my Lady?” Who could possibly resent such a wonderful being? And what did that have to do with the undead?
Her Lady paused her spellcasting, brow bone rising in something like surprise before a snort of laughter escaped her nostrils. “Yes, my vacuous little slave, resentment. All of those people, their spirits shackled to that swamp by their hatred and fear of me, the monster who tortured and killed them.”
The dragon’s tail swished behind her, tossing aside a corpse that happened to be in the way. “A question to help your tiny mind process it all: what happens when you have a collection of traumatised souls, a wellspring of natural magic, and piles of bones neatly sorted nearby?”
“…you get skeletons?” Ilya answered, following the trail her Queen had set. “Is that where they come from normally? They can just get up and walk off on their own?”
“Circumstances willing.”
Ilya’s brain worked it over, the gears turning smoothly without a sound. “There was this zombie in the sewers under Flavenport.” She said, remembering the sound of running water, glowing eyes in a black cloud, and the awful burn of the sun. “We never found out how it got there.”
“What is a sewer?” The dragon questioned. “I am unfamiliar with the inner workings of mortal cities.”
“Um, it’s a bunch of big pipes underground filled with dirty water and slimes that are supposed to clean the water. Annabelle said the point of it was to stop people from getting sick but the zombie made it do the opposite.” A guilty feeling welled up inside Ilya’s stomach as she spoke, realizing that she hadn’t told her Lady any of this. She had a right to be mad; so much was left out of that report.
“T-The lady at the guild called it a Putrifier?” Ilya continued with a stutter, hoping she could make up for it now. “She seemed really confused that it was there.”
“High agility? High vitality? Spitting attack? Shroud of black miasma?” The dragon asked in quick succession. Ilya nodded silently when her memory caught up.
“An odd place for a natural undead of that calibre. Something quite terrible must have happened down there.” Lady Visnavik’s expression was subtle, but to Ilya’s eyes, she seemed impressed. “A shame we will never know the gruesome details.”
Discarding the conversation, the dragon’s claws brought the stalled spell back to life, dark energies surging. “You brought the shards as well, you said? Throw two handfuls on the pile.”
Ilya did as ordered, reaching into the bag on her back and taking out a decently sized bag of crushed bone. The shadows reacted violently when the white shards met the blackness, erupting upwards like a bonfire that had just been fed.
With time the darkness grew greater in size, swallowing the light of the magic circle beneath it until only the outermost ring remained to contain it. The tongues of black flame curled like a living thing, swiping at the air above as if searching for more bodies to devour.
“Rise, firstborn of life and death. Rise, ‘o perfected one, and take your place as an extension of my will.”
At the command, the tallest tendrils converged, congealing into a large bulb far more physical than the shadows surrounding it.
The shape began to undulate, pulsing with vigour as it rose from the blackness, suspended on long thorny vines and misshapen skeletal arms. Dozens of pairs of lights blinked into being, filling empty sockets with vengeful glares and hopeless yearning.
With one last movement, the bulb stilled, before finally creaking open, blooming into the largest flower Ilya had ever seen.
Its petals were large and firm, shaped like the scales of their Queen. The tips and edges were as black as the shadows they were born from, but as one trialled their eyes inward the colour became a dark purple.
The innards of the flower glowed softly, brightening the whole cavern and revealing the rest of the creature’s form.
At once it was both plant and undead, growing and decaying. Beneath the bloom a bed of stems and roots tangled around countless different remains, cradling the deceased with care. Skulls peered out from the bed with pinpoint eyes, plantlife weaving through holes and cracks in the bone and nesting in closed jaws. More than one head had no eyes to see with, filled entirely by clusters of smaller purple flowers, but that didn’t stop them from meeting Ilya’s gaze.
“…AT THE MOMENT OF BIRTH, WE PROCLAIM HER SUPREME… THE ABSOLUTE AND THE ETERNAL.” The flowering graveyard spoke, a choir of voices backed by the creaking of wood.
“…WE PROCLAIM THE GLORY OF HER RULE AND THE RIGHTNESS OF HER WORD.” Every mandible chattered in perfect sync, as if the many echoed one mind, total in its devotion.
“…WE PROCLAIM THE TRUTH OF HER VISION AND THE PERFECTION OF HER CREATIONS.” Listening transfixed to the being’s words, Ilya knew them to be true. It was one such perfect creation: an ideal servant, hand crafted by Visnavik’drok’sahrot herself and filled with all the traits she desired. It held absolute loyalty to her, an understanding of her designs, the will to make her works reality, and the power to see it done.
Ilya was filled with a mixture of awe and inadequacy. It even spoke in prayers.
“MAY SHE REIGN FOREVER; FOREVER MAY SHE REIGN.” The grave garden boomed, its praises reverberating around the chamber.
“Forever may she reign…” Ilya responded in kind, following its lead. She would never match its might, but she hoped to one day match its fervour and perfect singleminded loyalty.
When their Queen was content with the amount of praise offered, she pointed at the entrance of the cave. “Go, my creation, guide the lesser dead in their tasks. Bring my horde to me.”
“I HEAR. I OBEY.” The beautiful monstrosity chanted as it slithered away, its gentle glow disappearing down the tunnel and leaving the grotto dark once again.
“As for you...” Lady Visnavik looked down upon her slave, who now felt very small indeed. “What should I do with you?”
Ilya shifted in place, nervously wringing her hands. The guilt was back in full force, the shame and inadequacy fed with her every mistake and imperfection.
“M-My Lady, before anything else…” Ilya spoke up, no longer able to carry the burden. “I… Your servant would like to beg forgiveness for her past failures.”
The dragon turned up her snout at an angle, her eyes remaining locked in their original direction. “Oh? Taking responsibility?”
Sinking to her knees before her Queen, Ilya continued. “I failed to give you my whole report; I left out details I knew were important. When I realized I messed up, I should have accepted punishment then and there, but instead I tried to shift blame and explain it away.” How could she be so arrogant to think she had power over anything- control of anything. The people of the town followed her because she represented their Lady. The undead listened to her because their Lady had ordered it. Power was a gift, one she didn’t deserve.
“I should have accepted it then, but please let me do it now.” She bent over in prostration, touching her forehead to the surface of the water. It was lukewarm.
A draconic rumble tickled the girl’s ears. “I was going to wait until that slight had been forgotten- to make my retaliation a surprise, but very well.”
Visnavik thought for a moment, reaching down to gently touch a claw to the back of Ilya’s skull, breaking the skin there. “Have you ever heard of the phrase ‘digging one’s own grave?’ You should be quite familiar with the concept behind it.”
Ilya was familiar; she had been on both the inflicting and the receiving end of something close. “Yes, my Queen.” She remained completely still; if her head moved even a tiny amount upward, her brain would be pierced through and she would die.
“Have you realized? I expect you have not.” The Lady of the Lake mocked in a low cooing tone. ”By your own actions you have made yourself easier to dispose of.”
Ilya almost fliched- almost ended her own life and joined the other corpses laying in the bloodied pool.
The claw moved forward to the base of the girl’s neck, the shallow cut slowly welling with blood. “You have procured a new slave for me, one who is stronger, more capable, and more enjoyable to torture. You have spread word of my glory though that little town and inspired a reverence that I can easily exploit in the future.”
“You have done much for me in a short timespan, and yet you have also dug a deep grave. One you will be abandoned in should I find you no longer worth my time.” Lady Visnavik knew well how to hurt her. Threatening physical pain could only go so far, threatening her life of service, the thing that she treasured most, went infinitely farther.
The black dragon reached another hand down, placing a claw under Ilya’s throat and tilting her head up so their eyes met. “Your punishment will follow this trend: you will gather the dead ingredients into a pile before me, dragging the bodies yourself.”
“You will play a hand in creating that which may one day replace you.”