86. Dead Town (Patreon)

“Leaving so soon?”

Oz whirled.

The man from earlier, the one who’d invited them into the town, stood behind them. His head tilted, and he smiled.

Darkness flashed across the world. For a moment, Oz caught sight of a ruined version of the same main street. Spoiled fruits and vegetables spilled out of the stalls. All the citizens wandered around, their neck stumps exposed, revealing bone and rotting flesh. Men, women, children, all of them decaying, all of them headless. In that moment, all of them rotated, turning their stumps to face Oz.

Light returned. All the townsfolk stared at him and his group, eyes completely dead. The man who had spoken walked toward them, an empty smile on his face and a threat in his eyes. “You can’t leave yet. You still haven’t become one of us.”

“How about him? Can he leave?” Oz asked, nodding at Roan.

Roan gave him a disturbed look.

The man looked Roan up and down, then nodded in satisfaction. “He can leave. I wouldn’t dare keep him.”

Right. Well. We aren’t getting out of this one with our heads on.

Hey. I want my head on, thanks very much, Fflyn complained.

Oz snorted. Poor phrasing. We aren’t getting out of this one with our heads on…not without a fight, anyways. How about that?

Better, much better.

With Loup and Aisling at his side, Oz backed toward the door. The townspeople closed in on them from all sides, stalking closer one step at a time. He glanced at Roan, who stood a little apart from the group, outside of the slowly-closing ring of townsfolk. “You can leave, if you want.”

“No. I won’t abandon you,” Roan said with conviction.

Oz frowned. He glanced at Roan. You won’t? Really? Since when?

They neared the walls of the town. The lights flickered again, revealing the truth once and for all. In that moment, the group of dullahan leaped at them, grabbing with bare hands. Oz jumped back, narrowly dodging a blow, and the dullahan’s hand smashed into the ground with such force that it shattered the cobblestones.

Startled, Oz stared at the broken stone, slowly lifting his eyes to take in the dullahan. Compared to the tree we fought, these guys are way stronger! What the hell?

No, wait. It does make sense. The dullahan are meant to be fighters on par with mages. They were purpose-built for battle. The tree, on the other hand, seems to have been part of the dullahan creation process. It was never meant to face battle, and, in fact, it was hidden in the heart of the city, where attacking mages were supposed to be unable to reach it.

If the three of us weren’t so weak—Loup isn’t even a true mage, for example—the dullahan probably would have attacked us the second w walked inside. But instead, we appeared as ordinary mortals to the dullahan, so they allowed us to pass…until now, anyways. Now that the tree’s been shattered, they’ve probably been set to destroy anything that moves.

Hmm, I wonder. Was that the trap we were meant to fall into, if we were ordinary mortals? Enter the town. The dullahan allow us to pass. We wander, down into the center of the city, where the tree decapitates us, and we become new dullahan.

It’s not impossible. After all, the shadow of Roan led us into the center of the town. Whoever created this obviously was deliberately luring us to the tree. And given that those voices that we heard didn’t know who had destroyed the tree, I suspect that the luring was an automatic process, not a manual one.

He cut his eyes at Roan. Then, was Roan being used as a lure all this time? Since when? Since the last time he came to visit me?

A strong hand grabbed the back of his robes and yanked, barely pulling him out of the swipe of a dullahan’s claws. Aisling looked at him, annoyed. “Don’t drift off! We’re in the middle of a fight!”

“Right, right, sorry,” Oz apologized, stepping back.

“Stand behind us. Loup and I will protect you.”

Oz opened his mouth to protest, then closed it. He put a hand on his chin. Aside from Fflyn’s assassin arts—which aren’t suited to a group fight—I haven’t really learned any attack arts. All my techniques are long, slow spells. I’m not much of a ‘martial’ mage, am I? I don’t even qualify as an ordinary mage. I’m totally a scholarly mage, useless on the front lines of the battlefield!

Is this surprising? You’re a librarian, Fflyn pointed out.

Oz paused. He frowned. No, I mean, it’s not, but… but this isn’t how I thought things would go!

And I didn’t expect to be sold into an assassination sect. Things happen.

Yeah…

Fire glowed around Aisling’s fists as she punched a dullahan back. Beside her, Loup sunk her teeth into a woman’s gut, while her wolves took down another one, pinning it to the floor and tearing at it from all sides. Roan reached for his sword. Finding his hip empty, he scowled and raised his fists, punching the dullahan back.

Watching them, Oz’s brows furrowed. Huh? That isn’t right.

Abruptly, Aisling snatched Oz up. She spun and sprinted for the wall. In a great leap, she cleared the wooden enclosure and landed outside. Loup followed, whistling for her wolves to follow her, and cleared the wall in a bolt of gray fur.

“Hey! Wait for me!” Roan kicked a dullahan back, then leaped over the wall, landing with a thump on the other side.

Oz’s brows raised. He looked at the wall behind them. Interesting. That hypothesis isn’t correct.

The dullahan charged the wall, slamming into it with roars of rage. The logs shook, and the gate trembled, but despite their best efforts, they couldn’t break free. One of them leaped up, trying to follow them over the wall, but at the apex of its jump, it slammed into an invisible wall of force and fell back, tumbling into the city.

Looks like they can’t escape. Well, that makes sense. If they’re building an army, they don’t want their foot soldiers to break free and rampage the countryside. Putting aside the fact that it would give up the game to some extent, it would also be a waste of their monsters’ strength.

Nodding to himself, Oz cleared his throat. “Let’s get out of here before any of them clear the wall. We still haven’t found the necromancer’s camp. I want to see the necromancer with my own eyes before we leave.”

Aisling glanced at him, confused. “That isn’t…”

Oz shot her a look.

“…Isn’t…the safest. You can’t even fight,” Aisling finished.

“Even so, I have to complete my mission,” Oz said firmly. He nodded at the other two. “Let’s hurry, before that fog shows back up.”

“Right.” Roan nodded and set off, marching deeper into the region. The rest of them fell in line, the wolves trailing at the back. Down the road, deeper into darkness.