Lord Albion had not come to the town for a few months now. This was probably for the best since I was certain the people would turn violent at the sight of him. Although more diggers passed through town and went to his estate every week, the townspeople were now hesitant about confronting them after what happened with Acta. A few enraged citizens armed themselves with pitchforks and promised to find out the truth from Lord Albion, but they never returned from his estate. I went about my regular business, doing odd jobs for people to keep myself fed. Slowly, my interest in Augustus's activities faded.
However, a strange assembly of caravans surrounded by twelve hooded figures made its way into town one day. A horrible rotting smell came from the covered wagons. I was walking through town to the vegetable stand when one of the figures confronted a townsperson.
"Peasant! Where is Lord Albion's estate?" he rasped.
"Who are you calling peasant?"
"Feh. I see the peasants in this country are unbehaved and crude. Perhaps I'll go ask a more intelligent specimen."
"I got your intelligent specimen right here!" The man balled his right hand into a fist and punched the stranger in the face. He was knocked onto his back.
"Joseph, Martin, the rest of you! Anyone who cares about our town! Grab your weapons! It's about time we did something about these Albion worshippers."
The stranger snapped his fingers. Two other robed figures staggered to his side and helped him up.
"Lord Albion has clearly lost control of his people. No wonder he wanted our council," the stranger said to his fellows. Some of the other figures around the caravan nodded in agreement. Meanwhile, a small group of townspeople with clubs and pitchforks was beginning to surround the caravan.
"Soldiers! Defensive positions!" one of the robed men yelled. Eight of the figures formed a tight perimeter around the caravan. They drew longswords from under their robes.
"Dear peasants of Lord Albion, it would be in your best interests to direct us to his estate and peacefully go on with your business, unless you wish to face a fate worse than death," a robed man shouted.
"Forget that! Get 'em, boys!"
Two men charged at one of the robed soldiers with their clubs, ready to knock his head off. The soldier swung his longsword in a wide horizontal arc, cleaving through one of the men with a slash that sent him to the graveyard. His top half plopped unceremoniously onto the dirt. The other man survived long enough to bat the soldier in the side of the head with his wooden club. The soldier's head flew straight off and landed a few feet away.
"You're dead!" he yelled furiously.
A few moments passed, but the headless soldier did not fall. The man could only stare incredulously as he was chopped in half by the soldier's still-moving body. The soldier's head was a skull, and the soldier was a skeleton!
"In a way, he was right," the robed figure said with a chuckle as he removed his hood. He was a pale, old man. The other figures removed their hoods. Three of them were human, but the rest of them were skeletons. Animated bones? How was this possible? Was this… necromancy?
"This soldier is indeed dead. But he is also alive. Have you never heard of the undead?" he said, walking over to the skull and fixing back onto the skeleton's body. "Unless the rest of you maggots want to join our entourage, I suggest you stay back. Bone soldiers! Gather the bodies!"
Two of the skeletons walked over to the two slain men and threw their halved corpses into one of the covered wagons. I briefly caught sight of what was in the wagon, but I refused to believe it…! A pile of rotting corpses! There was no way August could be entertaining these heathens, these necromancers. They reeked of pure evil.
A thought raced through my mind: maybe if I ran fast enough, I could get some of the monks to fight these undead. The undead were supposedly weak to holy powers. However, the image of the terrified, wrinkled old monks waving around their wooden crosses before being killed by those skeletons burned into my imagination. The monks were powerless. There was no way I was going to subject my caretakers to such a fate. Also, the meager amounts of holy water stored at the church wouldn't be enough to repel all of the undead.
One of the skeletons grabbed a man by his shirt and easily lifted him off the ground.
"So, would you kindly direct us to where Lord Albion's estate is located?" a necromancer hissed.
"Yeah, yeah, alright. D-don't kill me!" the panicked man blubbered.
"Excellent. You'll be coming with us as insurance to make sure your friends don't do anything stupid."
The skeleton put the man down but put its sword up against his back immediately.
"Now, march!"
The skeleton gave the frightened man a shove and he stumbled off towards the road to Augustus. The bone soldier's sword remained practically glued to him. The rest of the necromancer caravan slowly turned and followed. Now that I knew what to listen for, the rattling of the skeletons' bones was obvious. They shuffled their bone feet across the dirt. They were clumsy, but it was evident that they were terribly strong. No regular human could chop someone in half using a one-handed sword. I could hear people silently weeping and hushed talk of future plans as the caravan disappeared. I knew that this town couldn't take much more of this and that something bloody and horrible would happen before any of us would find peace. I had to know the truth and figure out if Lord Augustus had really become corrupted, and if so, how it happened. What was he doing in his estate with all those men and strange visitors? He had never once threatened me or shown me any sort of ill will. It was supremely difficult for me to imagine that he was as despicable as the rest of the townspeople were saying. However, the fact that full-blown necromancers were traveling through our town to visit Lord Albion put many doubts into my mind. It was up to me to figure out the truth and try to reason with August. It was time to pay him another visit.