The Blackwoods. Just out of reach of Farheim were the borders of the haunted, hated territory, earmarked by old ruined walls as warnings of the failed forts that were once set against man’s world and the reach of the Lichyard. It was a day’s walk and a night’s camp away to the boundary of the forest valley and the gray spot of twilight in the middle. The way there was just the same going back as Ozzy recalled, though his company was made of much more sturdy stuff than the traders he traveled with before.

“There it is,” Stormen said. He waved his hand out over the expanse from the top of the hill and stopped his palm just over the empty, dark shadow in the middle.

“It…sure is,” Ozzy replied.

“A single man,” Stormen said, “fighting his way through all of this -.”

“Fighting,” Ozzy interrupted, “isn’t the word I would use.”

Stormen glared at him, a silent repudiation for his interjection. “-is maddening,” he finished. “The hoards of the ruinous undead fill the lands in unseen places. Around trees, under pits. The forest is but the first danger of many leading up to the crypt below. And therein lies a danger far worse, more gruesome than what lies outside.”

Ozzy nodded. He felt his headscarf come loose and slowed himself so he could tighten it up again.

“It’s been the Guild’s objective,” Stormen explained, “since establishing in Farheim to intrude into the crypts below and find some proof of treasure.”

“And that’s been a rare occurrence?” Ozzy asked.

Stormen crossed his arms and surveyed the field before them. “Hasn’t happened yet.”

“Ah,” Ozzy nodded. “In…how many weeks? How long has the Guild been at it?”

“A year,” Stormen said, “officially. Plundering tombs and endangering lives is a hard business to start so far from the central capital grounds. That, and the logistics of forming the support network needed to fund these expeditions through the exchange of token trophies was against the wills of the locals who still held out some vague hope of being absorbed by Zandanian interests.”

“Oh, I see,” Ozzy nodded. That sounds like international political stuff. Zandanian? Interests? Token trophies?

Stormen withdrew a short club, a solid wooden grip and handle with a sheathe of studded metal over the top. An extreme sort of billy club, or medieval night stick. “We’re not after trophies,” he said, “so breaking the skulls and bones of walking skeletons is fair game.”

Ozzy gulped.

“Ah,” Stormen said, pointing to his side, “but you’ll be better off on the defensive with that. The denizens of the lichyard are mostly weak. They’re skeletons, just as light and just as jagged as any human’s, but for their mobility and odd tenacity. Even a weakling with a dagger can dole out a tremendous wounding if you aren’t careful.”

“Y-yes, sir,” Ozzy nodded. The man spoke with more wisdom about the living skeletal horde than the actual skeleton who stood right next to him. Tenacity is…true, I guess. The ones that can talk are all way more dangerous, more clever. The rest are just kind of…mindless. As far as I saw. Or not mindless, but very easily controlled.

“Come,” Stormen summoned. He started down the hill, and Ozzy followed close behind. They entered the Blackwood via a road which led straight into it, one overgrown and not well traveled, with ruins of stone posts along the sides where proper markings may have once existed generations ago. The road ended shortly into the first line of trees with a broken wall that had writing etched into the rotting planks of wood. It was their last warning to turn back and abandon their path, as no more road existed from that point on.

Ozzy looked around as they entered the woods. It wasn’t as evil and foreboding as he remembered. Most of his flight out of the woods was one spent in a dire panic, blindly running anywhere that seemed like it went uphill, and then he rested at the church. The rest was far more memorable. But he did recall being chased before they got too far in.

“Are there other groups out here?” Ozzy asked.

“Should be,” Stormen said. “Better be. The whole point of the Guild is to keep people coming in and pressing forward until we can settle real camps.”

“Ah, yes,” Ozzy nodded. “I saw…something like that.”

“Did you?”

“A group of women,” he recollected. “Who spoke…not the same language as us. And me, being in distress and underdressed - I guess they thought I was a monster and tried to kill me. So I was run out by more than just…skeletal creatures.”

“If they’re not talking like you and I,” Stormen said, “it’s best not to trust them.”

“Uh-huh,” Ozzy nodded. “Language barriers will make cooperation difficult.”

“They could be Polers,” Stormen said, with a denigrating tone.

“...Yes,” Ozzy blindly agreed. Okay. Zandanians are bad. Polers are bad. Tartarians are not good, but not immediately hated. The Defender’s Guild comes from this country’s capital of…uh - I wonder how many questions I can ask until he starts to wonder -.

“Where are you from?” Stormen asked.

KKKKKHHHHH!!!!!

“Uh, yeah!” Ozzy replied, in a fluster. “What? Oh, uh - I’m from - right. I’m not from around here, normally. Local. I’m from…elsewhere.”

Stormen looked back over his shoulder. His distrust was palpable. Ozzy rolled his head to the side and tried to come up with a decent lie. He couldn’t say he came from the crypt and leave it at that but it was the only other place besides Farheim he’d been that had actual standing buildings. So he pieced what facts he had together and tried to formulate the best lie he could think of.

“I’m…Zandan…” he muttered, trailing off incoherently.

“Are you?” Stormen said.

“Well, not a very good one,” Ozzy admitted. “I - I’m not a criminal, of course. I’m just not…a model citizen, either. I got into some debts with some people and had to skip town. Unreasonable debts, in my own defense. But anyway, I’d heard rumors about treasures and the Defender’s Guild hunting them down and thought I’d try my chances and get some before it’s all gone. So I came here…and then the rest happened.”

“Hmm,” Stormen said, thoughtfully. “Never would have guessed it.”

“I didn’t mean to deceive you,” Ozzy said. Then, much more earnestly, he continued, “I don’t put a lot of attachment to where I came from. I’d much rather focus on where I’m meant to be.”

Ozzy even surprised himself somewhat with how easily the words came from his mouth. Stormen seemed satisfied and soldiered on ahead.

“A united front,” Stormen said, “is probably best for this threat. Though the guild may disagree. It’s just another field of warfare for Renelac to take part in. Too afraid to march honest men into a cruel king’s war.” His tone was deep and heavy. Morose, as well as jaded. Ozzy felt his eyes drifting down to the ground, as he followed in the footsteps of the far more rugged man.

They got deep into the forest, still unassailed, only ever interrupted by a passing wind in the treetops high above. It was almost peaceful. Dark, foreboding, every blind corner and distance an avenue for a blind-sided attack from arcane evils, but still peaceful. There were no woods Ozzy ever traveled through that carried more of a feeling of being haunted.

Stormen kept them on a straight path. It was all downhill, the whole way, but there were steeper grades which he avoided. They stayed on a well walked path where the grass was beaten down that wrapped around and avoided many of the pitfalls and sudden drops in the hillsides. It was hard terrain for their enemies, too, and their bony feet.

“Hold,” Stormen whispered. He positioned himself behind a tree. Ozzy tried to squeeze up behind him. Stormen pushed him off, so Ozzy went to the other side of the tree instead and tried to stay in profile as much as he could. He looked out. Down the hill, just ahead, was a stark white figure hunched over on the grass. Ozzy squinted but couldn’t see any further. Stormen, meanwhile, took out a small telescope, palm sized, from one of his many pockets.

“It’s a skeleton,” he whispered.

“A real one, or a moving one?” Ozzy asked.

Stormen politely ignored the question. “Out in the open. What would you make of it?”

“Hmm?”

“In your experience,” Stormen asked, “your gut feeling, your intuition; of what you’ve seen so close up of these fiends, what does this appear to be?”

Ozzy was being tested. He picked up on it a second late and stammered internally over an answer. It was obvious what it looked like. And he imagined one or more skeletons of the crypt would be capable of arranging it. But then, another issue occurred to him, which cast a doubt upon the answer Stormen was most expecting.

“It looks like a trap,” Ozzy whispered, “but can they even do that?”

“They move and fight like humans,” Stormen said. “It’s assumed they may yet still think like humans, however reduced. If their aim is survival, their best interest would be to hide under dirt or return to the lichyard, yes?”

“Y-yeah,” Ozzy said.

“So why wander out here,” Stormen asked, “and again and again meet blade and hammer of those who wish them harm?”

Ozzy knew the answer. He at least knew the identity of one who had an answer which went ungiven. The reason why skeletons like him were selected and treated specially, and why others were sent to wander the crypt or the graveyard forever; of course there was meaning beyond survival. If survival mattered, Marrowbane wouldn’t exist.

“To hunt,” Ozzy said.

Stormen nodded. Club in hand, he made a slow approach. Ozzy followed a few steps behind and clutched his hand to the hilt of his borrowed sword. Ozzy kept his head up and scanned the treetops.

If I were planning an ambush, with this body, I’d get height and drop down. I mean - I’d break my bones just dropping, but…also, I’m so light that I wouldn’t drop all that fast. And my bones can be reassembled back in place as long as they’re whole. But that’s me worrying. These skeletons wouldn’t think that far ahead. If all they’re interested in is fighting, causing damage, then dropping down would be ideal.

Stormen seemed to think the same. His eyes went off the resting skeleton infrequently to scan his surroundings - top to bottom. He also looked out for fresh dirt plots, gathered branches and piled leafs, other signs of obvious hiding. It wasn’t just skeletons he was worried about.

Ozzy held back and observed Stormen’s method. First, the veteran stalked up to his prey, outside of striking or leaping distance. His weapon was held tight and ready for a swing from below. The skeleton was unarmed, but still moved just barely in a sway. It was “alive”, and therefore dangerous. He waited a moment.

Then the skeleton raised its head. It opened its mouth. An immediate sound escaped its hollow jaw, a blaring warning cry, which Stormen was quick to silence with his cudgel. He shoved the instrument into the skull, then stomped forward and pried the jaw off. That only stifled the cry. He pushed the rest of the skeleton over and swung down hard, cracking the skull open into fragments.

Ozzy let out a very quiet kkkkkhhhhh under his veil. That could’ve been him. The skeleton went immobile. It was defeated. Whatever state of living or death it was in before, this counted it as fully dead. The trap seemed unsprung. Stormen checked his immediate surroundings. No disturbed dirt or piled leaves in sight.

“Look up!” Ozzy shouted. He was already up and running, as a pile of bones fell from above. Ozzy sprinted and dove to catch the falling skeleton as it descended. He tackled it mid-air and landed with a scatter of bones that weren’t his own sprawling out in all directions as he rolled away. Stormen made a tactical backwards roll and stood up, cudgel ready, as one other skeleton fell nearby.

He looked up. There was a figure far above in the tree branches, bony white. They locked eyes from a distance, and the unseen enemy dashed off. A planned ambush, just like he and Ozzy feared.

“Are you unhurt?” Stormen asked.

“GAH!” Ozzy screamed. The bones that fell on him, disjointed and unattached to anything, wrapped around him in deathly clutches, binding him around his ankles and knees and shoulders. He couldn’t find the room to draw his sword - or any use. They were bones, not ropes or tape. And they were still alive.

The rest of the thrown bones were also loving. Arms, legs, rib cages and spines that crawled forward like insects with wagging tails. Not a skull in sight, nothing to break. Stormen backed up and went in Ozzy’s direction. He yanked the clutching bones off and smashed them mid-air like he was beating the dust out of old blankets. Ozzy stood up, with one set of conjoined double-elbowed arms still wrapped around his middle.

“T-try not to hurt me,” Ozzy said.

“Finish it off yourself,” Stormen warned. “And follow me.”

He ran. Ozzy was shocked.

Really!? You’re just leaving this here?

“Are you just going to leave this -?”

“Come on!” Stormen demanded. Ozzy sighed and looked down. With the veteran’s back turned, he at least had the peace and lack of presence to deal with the boney assault in the way he knew how.

He disconnected one arm, used the other to slip it out, through the sleeve, then yanked the sleeve out of the bone-belt’s grip and slid his arm back on at the shoulder. He felt a bizarre, phantom numbness the whole time, like his unjoined arm was submerged to the shoulder joint in a homeostatic goop. With one arm free, and re-sleeved, he pried the bone chain off and threw it down as the rest of the body parts converged, still separated and grotesque.

He ran after Stormen, just visible in the distance, and caught up in no time. The lichyard was still a ways ahead, but the tricks and traps of the Blackwoods had only just begun…