Published at 14th of October 2023 4:58 pm

Chapter 25 Headcount

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The masked figure paused, staring at Vanalath. He returned the look, but didn’t sense any hostility. Rather, he couldn’t help but be nagged by an impression of familiarity. The mask was clearly the one that Anamu had worn earlier, but this creature was too different in appearance to be the cowardly creature from his memory. He had the same pale blonde hair as the young ghoul, but this creature had a pronounced hunch that Anamu hadn’t had. His arms were too long, dangling past his knees, and the hands were tipped by cruel-looking claws.

Still, that feeling couldn’t be mistaken.

“Anamu?” asked Vanalath, testing his newly constituted throat muscles.

The creature tilted his head, growling softly.

It me, he said. I return from hunt, Master.

‘Anamu’ gestured at the load he had been dragging along behind him. It was the remnants of a corpse that appeared to have been mostly devoured. It lacked a head and most of its torso, including an arm that had been torn off at the shoulder. Even what remained of the body had chunks taken out of it, but these marks appeared to be from some large animal, rather than a ghoul. Eyeing the monster that was distinctly different from his memory, Vanalath wondered how else his Peon had changed.

“Remove your mask,” he commanded.

Anamu tilted his head to the side. He didn’t growl this time, but instead spoke aloud. His voice sounded even worse than Vanalath’s. It wasn’t low and raspy like his, but more like a bestial growl than anything else.

“Namen doltei?”

And the words were spoken in Yaranese. Of course they wouldn’t understand one another—Vanalath had forgotten for an instant that they spoke two separate tongues. But then how had they made that exchange earlier? Wait, of course—it was the same method he had been using to communicate with Iokina.

This time, Vanalath infused his voice with his will. He still spoke the same language that Anamu didn’t understand, but with the added infusion of will, he felt that the savage ghoul should understand him. If he could growl and be understood, then surely he could speak and achieve the same result. He could have continued to growl like an animal, but now that he had a voice, he would use it.

<Remove your mask,> he repeated himself.

Anamu dropped the corpse, his gangly arms moving up to his head to untie the grinning mask. When it dropped to the floor, revealing the face underneath, Vanalath reigned in his surprise and commenced an inspection. His boots splashed in the shallow water as he crossed the brook and circled Anamu, who stood with an uncomfortable stillness.

The juvenile ghoul had grown taller. Though he still did not reach Vanalath’s collar, if he stopped hunching over, he might be only a few inches shorter. The stooped posture he had adopted didn’t seem unnatural, however. Combined with his lengthened arms, Anamu had the look of some primeval predator. This impression was strengthened by the ghoul’s face, which had changed the most of all. His mouth was the most different. It gaped, far more widely than a human mouth should. Like a crocodile’s jaw, it reached halfway to his ears, and rows of sharp teeth peeked out from behind colorless lips. Several new scars finished the look. Three lines crawled forth from the ghoul’s upper lip, as if a man being eaten alive had struggled and managed to inflict the wounds with his fingernails. The scars traced paths up his cheek, stopping just short of his eye.

Finally, his Brand: the mark of Gluttony. Rather than the dimness Vanalath had come to expect from these marks, now it glowed at a constant level of light. He felt his hand moving to his own forehead. Did his own Brand shine like that? So striking were the other changes that he hadn’t paid attention to his reflection, but it might have indeed been glowing.

The ghoul had evolved. As Vanalath continued to inspect him, he felt a grin begin to work itself onto his lips. Vanalath smiled, and something in his look made Anamu flinch back.

He spoke to his Peon. <Fight me.>

He wished to test his new body of his. Anamu lowered his head, attempting to make himself appear small. Then, copying Vanalath’s method of speech, he attempted to communicate by speaking in Yaranese while infusing his will. The meaning was communicated more clearly with this new method than it had been before.

<Master, Mistress, she… ordered, me to bring this back,> he said, with a look at the body behind him. <I must go and report—>

Vanalath stepped forward, eyes flashing dangerously.

<And who is it you serve?!>

The sudden vehemence of his words surprised even the one who uttered them. Vanalath took a half-step back. What had caused him to suddenly lash out like that?

Anamu didn’t notice his master’s hesitation, as he fell to the ground, groveling.

<You! I serve you!>

A long silence ensued.

<…Go. I will be along shortly.>

<Yes!>

Anamu immediately hurried away, but had to be called back by Vanalath. He left behind the corpse he was tasked with bringing back.

<Why were you out there hunting this person?> he asked, idly curious.

<The hunter, he ran away when the leader fell. No others could chase, so Mistress sent me. I hunt the hunter. I killed him myself, then became—>

Vanalath interrupted him, shooing the ghoul away, uninterested in his self-praise. So, the juvenile creature had killed a fleeing hunter and evolved. How wonderful, for a ghoul who only borrowed Vanalath’s potential to reach such heights.

He recognized the bitter thoughts for what they were and forced himself to ignore them. Until he could get the information he needed from the necromancer, he would put up with this sour taste in his mouth. He hadn’t noticed his potential drying up yet, but the instant he did, he intended to hold her to her promise.

For now, he marshalled his thoughts and returned to the camp. He hadn’t yet tested himself or fully learned about his abilities, but there would be time for that later.

Before entering the clearing, he pulled out a cloth from his pocket, making a hasty face covering. When he stepped into the camp, he saw the necromancer, song finished, standing in the center and watching as ghouls bustled around, picking up corpses and preparing them to be moved.

As he approached the woman, he noticed something different about her. First was the presence she appeared to unconsciously exude, but a moment’s inspection told Vanalath that it wasn’t anything particular about her, but merely a perception on his part. It was the same sensation Anamu had inspired in him before he emerged from the trees, though hers felt slightly stronger. Now, Vanalath recognized it as his <Hunter of Brands> title at work, warning him of the existence of another Branded.

But something else had changed about her besides this, and he couldn’t quite place it. A certain lightness in her expression, perhaps? Was it relief?

Vanalath approached the woman, and she half-turned to smile at him.

“Good, you’re back. Would you help the others gather the corpses? We have one less body to worry about, thanks to that overeager Anamu, but each of them represents a precious soldier. These hunters will make for strong ghouls.”

Vanalath’s eyes were naturally drawn towards one of the corpses among the throng.

The body of Orimo the Hunter looked… small. Frailer than he remembered it. The head of the man had been placed on the ground near his body, mouth slightly agape, staring dumbly at nothing.

“Oh, him,” she said, her eyes following his gaze. “I should be able to reattach the head through a simple surgery. You did well in killing that man the way you did. He will not retain his Brand after the raising ritual, but with care, some of his previous strengths should remain. I expect to make a fine lieutenant out of him. Now, will you go and help the others?”

At her directive, a pulse of fire raced up his spine. “I am not your mule,” he said.

Rather than being taken aback, the necromancer’s eyes glittered. “You speak! You must have evolved again! Oh, what a joyous occasion!”

Had she not noticed his evolution earlier?

“You must realize how long I’ve waited for a conversational partner—and that bore of a child back at the cottage doesn’t count.”

Her reaction disarmed Vanalath, his momentary flash of rage dissipating.

“Will you ask me something?” she questioned. “Or—no, should I be the one to ask? How is it that conversations go? I’ve just been ordering undead around recently, which are rather unilateral discussions.”

What followed was an expectant silence. The necromancer beamed up at him with that same pacifying friendliness.

Vanalath finally asked, “Why were you singing earlier?”

“Oh, that?” said the woman, her smile dimming slightly. She walked over to the monolithic stone that dominated the clearing and placed a hand on its surface.

“I was asking for permission,” she said.

“Permission? For what?”

“To run and hide.”

Vanalath didn’t reply, but his dissatisfaction with the answer must have been clear as the necromancer gave a small sigh and wandered back to his side.

“Think of them as our sponsors. They put this stone here, and I can, in a way, speak to them through it. We need their help if we want to escape the long arm of the Enclave.”

“Who are these sponsors?”

“The forgotten race,” she said. “The first who walked this world. They have their own name for themselves, but it is long forgotten. We simply call them the Men of Rock.”

- - -

As they made their way back down into the dead valley, Vanalath counted their gains and losses.

Ninety-two ghouls had fallen in this battle. Including the earlier fights, the casualties increased to over one-hundred. There were only thirty-six of them left. Despite that, the number of evolved ghouls had increased. Many freshly-evolved undead now supplemented their numbers. Including Vanalath’s trio, there were twenty-three evolved ghouls mingling among the lessers. Anamu had evolved into something the necromancer called a greater ghoul, though Kalaki remained much the same as always. When Vanalath found him, he had been sitting off to the side of the camp, staring at the sky absentmindedly, as he was accustomed to do.

Speaking of evolved ghouls, another caught Vanalath’s eye. At the rear of the troupe, this small ghoul was working together with another to drag along a body by the legs. This undead had had evolved after the preliminary ambush of the fifteen hunters, missing out on the main engagement with Orimo. She was a child, barely four feet tall, but Vanalath remembered her from the prison, as she had been one of the ghouls who had infiltrated through the window and driven the humans to panic. He’d seen her chase down a woman twice her size and rip her apart. She now bore several small knives that had been looted from hunters and stowed away in a belt.

Finally, there were the shamblers who surrounded Iokina in a protective circle even as they carried the corpses of hunters with them through the fields of the valley. None of them appeared to have evolved, but that wasn’t what attracted Vanalath’s attention. He noticed after the fight that two of them had been killed. There should have been three remaining, but a few of the lesser ghouls had instead supplemented their ranks. Not only that, but the number of shamblers had been raised from five to six. These new shamblers had been unorganized, dumb ghouls, but now they moved with the same eerie coordination of the others, as if they had always been part of the group.

After departing the camp, his mistress didn’t speak any further of Vanalath’s own evolution. It was as if she had no curiosity regarding that particular subject.

“We have, at a minimum, three weeks,” she explained as they marched through the barren fields of the Cradle. “If we don’t leave the valley at that time, there’s no saying whether we’ll be able to escape the Hunt that the Enclave organizes against us. If Orimo did not send out a messenger, we may have more than a month, but I doubt we are so lucky. Villagers might have escaped the valley and informed the Enclave even if Orimo didn’t send anyone.”

Earlier, she had explained to him that the Enclave was the capital city of Yarang. Apparently, many powerful Branded resided there, making it a force they couldn’t deal with as they were.

“Why not leave now?” asked Vanalath. “We can find other lands and easier prey before this Enclave ever hears of us.”

She gave him a sideways glance. “A few reasons. The first is that I wish to gather the remaining undead. There should be far more roaming about the Cradle than the hundred-some you gathered originally.”

Vanalath acceded that point. There had been many undead who had wandered out of the villages, chasing fleeing humans. It would have been difficult to sweep the entire valley in a day, but given weeks, it should be possible to round up most of these rogue ghouls.

“I could summon them more quickly with a ritual,” she explained, “but the components used in such a thing are difficult to replace. And besides, there is another ritual I will be performing.”

“And what is that?”

“The ritual to raise all of these fine hunters, of course!” she laughed. “The sooner that is performed, the better. Look at how this one turned out.”

As she spoke, she gestured at one of the ghouls. This particular one was the hunter whom she had reanimated before the battle the night before—the man killed by Kalaki. He had evolved in the fight, and now wielded a short blade, with a bow strung to his back. Ghouls were just as capable of using weapons as humans, but very few of the villagers that made up the majority of their forces were experienced in such things even when they were alive. Since that was the case, when they evolved, they often resorted to their bare hands. Vanalath certainly saw the value in adding more capable fighters to their number.

“Excellent, I see our home,” said the necromancer. “Say, would you be so kind as to help me arrange the ritual, Vanalath? I need your help with a crucial element.”

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