Chương 29: Chapter 25 - Mysterious Skeletons

Two days later, a Black Ape moved through the tree line just past the edge of the new road, keeping to the shadows out of habit more than necessity. Nobody was around to hide from. Korr had drawn the short straw for this one, if you could call scouting duty a short straw. Saro's word, not his: find out what they're selling, and who owns it. It is simple, on paper. But in practice, it meant standing in the dark outside a wooden shack for however long it took to see something worth reporting.

He crouched behind a thick tree and studied the building ahead. The shop was small and freshly built, the kind of place that still smelled like sawdust if the wind was right. Its walls were rough-cut timber, and several boards were still a shade lighter than the rest, as though they'd been replaced only yesterday. A crooked sign hung over the door, its letters painted by someone clearly not used to holding a brush. One character larger than the others, another tilted slightly sideways.

"Whoever made that sign should be ashamed," Korr muttered, then caught himself whispering and cleared his throat, glancing around. Nobody had heard him. Probably. He turned his attention back to the shop. There were no guards, no lights, and no movement, not even the faint sound of someone shifting around inside. A shop with nobody watching it was its own kind of interesting. He crept closer. The floorboards gave a faint creak beneath his weight, but the sound disappeared into the night before it could travel far.

He reached the door.

"Hello?" Nothing answered. He waited a moment, then tried again.

"Anyone's here?" Still nothing. He pushed the door open, and the hinges groaned. Inside, shelves stood in neat rows along the walls, with several wooden baskets set beneath them, presumably for whatever goods the shop meant to sell someday. A counter sat near the back, a small stool tucked behind it. Everything was clean. Everything was empty. Korr checked the storage room and it was empty. He then checked beneath the counter, there was nothing.

He even opened one of the baskets, as if something might somehow be hiding inside it. Still nothing.

"Of course," he sighed, stepping back into the main room. It made sense; the shop was clearly new, the wood still fresh, and whoever owned it hadn't even bothered to stock it yet. He was somewhat thankful there was nothing to report. At the same time, he knew this wouldn't be his last visit. Saro had specifically ordered him to find out who owned the place, which meant he'd probably be coming back again until the owner finally showed up. Korr stepped outside and looked toward the road.

It stretched farther into the distance now, connecting the growing settlements and making travel considerably easier than it used to be. More people would began using it, more merchants would come. And where merchants came, shops would eventually follow. Perhaps this little wooden shack would turn out to be nothing more than an ordinary shop. Or perhaps not. Korr had learned that when Saro took an interest in something, it was usually better not to assume it was ordinary.

He took a step backward and began to leave....

"Well?" Saro asked when Korr finally stood before him again. Korr straightened.

"It's a shop, sir. A newly built one""Empty." Saro's expression didn't change, and Korr scratched the back of his head.

"No one is running it, as far as I could tell. There were shelves, baskets, a storage room, and a counter. But there was still nothing inside any of it." Saro waited. Korr waited too, the elder's silence making him increasingly uncomfortable, until Saro finally raised an eyebrow.

"That's all?" Korr hesitated.

"That's all." Saro studied him for a moment longer than the answer deserved, then nodded.

"Then come back and stay a few days." Korr blinked.

"A few days?"

"Until you see the owner." Korr sighed internally. Of course.

"I understand." As he turned to go, Saro added, "And don't let them know you're watching." Korr glanced over his shoulder.

"Alright. I wasn't actually planning to." Saro said nothing. Korr left. Behind him, Saro remained where he was, his gaze resting on the direction Korr had gone. The shop itself wasn't particularly interesting. What mattered was who had built it. And why.... The caravan had been moving for a few days by the time anything went wrong. For Luan, the journey had begun to settle into a strange sort of routine: wake, eat, travel, watch, sleep, then repeat it all again.

The road made the trip considerably smoother than traveling through open wilderness, though the constant rocking of the wagon still made sleeping difficult. Every morning the caravan began moving not long after sunrise: the cattle harnessed, the cargo checked, the warriors inspecting their weapons, and Zorian making certain everyone was accounted for before giving the order to move.

By midday they would usually stop briefly—the cattle needed water, the guards needed to eat, the merchants traveling with them needed a chance to stretch their legs—before continuing until evening. Luan had learned more about caravan life than he'd expected to in such a short span. The passenger compartment where he and Torou rode was the smallest part of the operation.

Behind it stretched a train of a dozen cargo wagons, each carrying goods bundled beneath thick cloth that Luan had no idea about, some heavy enough that the cattle pulling them struggled whenever the road inclined, others surprisingly light. He'd asked once, and Torou had told him that not knowing was safer. At least two hired warriors rode alongside each wagon, armed differently depending on preference: spears, swords, axes, bows.

Their equipment wasn't especially impressive compared to what the Black Ape warriors carried, but they were experienced, and Luan had noticed that much. They constantly watched the surrounding wilderness, checked the road ahead, looked behind the caravan; even while talking among themselves, their eyes rarely stopped moving. At the front, near the lead wagon, Zorian, the caravan's chief, flanked by four more warriors who never seemed to fully relax, even when the road ahead looked empty for miles.

Luan found that strangely reassuring. There was something comforting about seeing people who took danger seriously. Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. One evening, with the sun sinking beyond the distant hills, Luan sat near the side of the wagon and watched two guards trade places, one handing his spear off while rubbing his shoulder, the second giving a brief nod before taking up position.

"They really don't stop watching, do they?" Luan asked. Torou looked up.

"What?"

"The guards." Luan nodded toward them.

"They've been doing this every day."

"Of course. It's their job to do so."

"Even when nothing happens?"

"Especially when nothing happens." Luan frowned. Torou chuckled.

"You'll understand eventually." Luan looked toward the darkening wilderness. The forest stretched along both sides of the road, growing denser the farther it got from the cleared path. Something could easily be watching them from in there, and the thought made him feel suddenly less comfortable.

"There's more of them than I expected," he admitted.

"A caravan this size is worth robbing," Torou said, without looking up from the blade he'd been quietly sharpening since sundown, a habit Luan had noticed he kept up every night, rain or clear sky.

"Goods, cattle, coin." The whetstone scraped along the edge.

"Sometimes people." He lifted his eyes.

"Fewer guards, and it wouldn't be a caravan. It'd be a target with wheels."

"That's a horrible way to describe it. Still don't say that, people might hear us and misunderstand."

"Doesn't make it less true, and yeah, I'm just saying." Luan looked at the long line of wagons. He'd never really considered how much value was moving along this road at once: food, spiritual fruit, pill, coins, equipment, cattle, people, all of it traveling together, all of it announcing itself to anyone watching from the wilderness.

"Has anything ever actually happened?" he asked.

"On a trip like this?" Torou stopped sharpening and considered the question longer than Luan expected.

"There was, once. Though it was a different caravan, and also a different road. I heard about it through rumors." He lowered the whetstone.

"They lost eleven wagons and nineteen people in one night." Luan's ears twitched.

"That's..."

"Bad?"

"Yes, very bad." Torou nodded.

"The merchant who ran it never recovered. Then he sold what was left of his route within the year." Luan looked toward the darkness again.

"Why would anyone keep doing this?"

"Because the roads still need to be traveled." Torou shrugged.

"People need things from other places. Merchants want money. Cities need supplies, and tribes want goods they can't produce themselves." He tapped the side of his sword.

"There's always a reason." Luan didn't have anything to say to that. He filed it away instead, the way he'd started filing away most things Torou told him, carefully and a little uneasily. The journey continued. For another day, nothing happened. Then another. By the fourth night, Luan had almost begun to believe the story Torou had told him was nothing more than an old rumor. He should have known better.... On the fourth night, something happened. There was no warning that meant anything, not at first.

The caravan had stopped for the evening, but nobody had completely relaxed. A few small fires burned between the wagons. The cattle had been fed and watered, and the guards took turns eating while others kept watch. Luan sat near the passenger wagon with Torou. The night was unusually quiet—little wind, a mostly clear sky, a thin sliver of moon barely bright enough to touch the road. The wilderness beyond it was almost completely black. Then the cattle grew restless.

One shifted its weight, then another, a third pulling against its harness.

"Easy..." One of the drivers approached and rubbed its neck, but the animal wouldn't calm, kept staring toward the wilderness. Another lowed. Then another, and one of the older drivers glanced at the sky.

"Storm coming?"

"There aren't any clouds."

"Could still be one farther out." Luan noticed the cattle's behavior without quite knowing why it bothered him. Animals were supposed to react to things before people did: predators, storms, strange scents. But there was nothing. Nothing he could sense at all. Then one of the cattle screamed. Not a normal lowing. A scream. The sound tore through the night, and several animals immediately panicked, harnesses rattling, wooden wheels shaking, one driver nearly pulled off his feet. And more screams followed.

Luan's ears flattened, his body reacting before his mind could catch up. Torou was already on his feet, sword in hand.

"Stay behind me." For once, Luan didn't argue. Outside, the warriors were already moving. Torches flared to life one after another along the length of the caravan, orange light cutting through the darkness. Men shouted, and a cattle kicked against their harnesses. Someone then yelled for the rear guards to move forward. Zorian's voice rose above the chaos.

"Keep the cattle from breaking formation!" Luan stepped out from the wagon. Then he saw them, and his breath caught. They came up out of the scrub grass in a ragged line: bones, nothing but bones. At first, Luan thought they were dead animals. Then one stood upright, another followed. Then another. They had no muscle, no sinew, no skin stretched over their frames. Their rib cages hung open like empty baskets.

Their long arms ended in crooked claws, and their skulls stared toward the caravan with hollow eye sockets—no eyes behind them, no flesh, no expression—and yet they moved with purpose, slowly, evenly, without hesitation, closing the distance. Luan's mouth went dry.

"Skeletons..." He swallowed.

"No." More emerged from the darkness. Ten. Twenty. Thirty. More.

"An army of skeletons." He'd heard the word in stories. He'd never expected to need it. Torou's grip tightened around his sword.

"I've never seen anything like this."

"Formation!" Zorian's voice cut through the noise, hoarse but steady.

"Wagons in! Protect the cattle first." A pause.

"Nobody dies for either!" The warriors moved, and they form a defensive line—messy compared to the formations the Black Apes practice, but fast. Two fell back to herd the terrified cattle tighter against the wagons. The rest formed a loose, overlapping line facing the bone-things, weapons up, torches raised high enough to throw long shadows across the road. For a brief moment, Luan wondered whether the shadows were almost as frightening as the skeletons themselves. Then the first skeleton reached the line.

A warrior's axe came down. Crack. The skull was split, and the creature staggered—it didn't die, because there was nothing alive in it to kill. Its head simply broke apart, and the body carried forward one more step before collapsing.

"Don't waste your attacks!" someone shouted.

"Aim for the spine or the joints!" Another skeleton slammed into the line. A spear then pierced its ribs, and the bones rattled as it grabbed the shaft and tried to pull the warrior forward. He let go just in time, and an axe struck the skeleton's knee, breaking the joint and dropping it. The road became a storm of clattering bones and steel. Torou stepped forward, and Luan felt something change around him—a familiar prickle in the air.

His illusion attribute create a false shapes, and it appeared among the skeletons; for an instant, several Torous seemed to stand across the road. The skeletons didn't react, but they simply just walked straight through the illusions. Torou's eyes widened.

"What?" He tried again, and another false image appeared. It was useless, the skeletons kept advancing.

"They don't have minds to fool!" he shouted, abandoning the attempt and meeting the nearest one with his blade instead. A clawed hand made entirely of finger bones swept toward his face; he ducked, and his sword cut upward, separating the arm at the elbow. It attacked with its remaining hand, but he kicked it backward.

"Nothing to trick!" he called toward Luan.

"Just movement!" That detail sat wrong with Luan even in the middle of the chaos. Movement without a mind still needed something to tell it where to move. Something had to be controlling them or perhaps something was. His eyes swept across the battlefield—there were too many, and they moved too uniformly. They weren't behaving like beasts, they weren't also behaving like warriors, and not even behaving like the undead from the stories he'd heard. They simply advanced forward.

The fight sprawled across the road in ugly, grinding pieces—no clean lines, no clear front, warriors and bones tangled together beneath the torchlight, the dry clatter of bone striking steel mixing with the screaming of cattle and shouted orders overlapping with cries of pain. One warrior drove a spear through a skeleton's chest. Another warrior swung an axe, and a third was forced backward. The skeletons didn't seem to feel fear, and they didn't even retreat.

One of the younger guards went down hard, a bone spear punching through his shoulder and pinning him to the ground. The skeleton raised its arm again, the bone weapon pointed toward his chest, and his eyes widened.

"Help!" Torou reached him first. His sword flashed, and the skeleton's arm dropped. He then grabbed the wounded warrior by the collar and dragged him backward, but a second skeleton attacked from the side. Torou twisted—the bone blade scraped across his forearm, and blood spilled. He gritted his teeth, kicked the skeleton away, and cut through its knee. The skeleton collapsed.

"Get him behind the wagon!" Another warrior grabbed the wounded guard. Torou stepped back, his breathing ragged, his hands trembling. The faint prickle of his illusion attribute had disappeared entirely, and his spiritual essence was running low.

"Torou..." Luan was at his side before he'd decided to move.

"I'm fine." He wasn't. Luan looked at the blood running down his arm.

"You don't look fine."

"I'm fine enough." Torou raised his sword again. Luan stared at the battlefield. He didn't have a sword. His attribute was useless in this crowded battle. For a moment, helplessness tightened around his chest.