Necromancer: Kingdom Building with My Legion of Undead Knights-Chapter 15: Into The Woods

The knights would have all laughed if not for the respect they had for Darion.

It wasn’t the fact that he said he was going alone that was funny, it was that he said he would come back with a Bogoart. Even two.

That was the kind of thing a brave, hopeful child said. One who hadn’t yet seen enough of the world to know better.

But Darion didn’t look like a child and he didn’t sound like one either. He spoke like a man, voice bold and clear enough to reach every corner of the training grounds. And there was no uncertainty in it. No performance of confidence either. His voice was plain and steady, the sound of someone who believed what he was saying.

They all stayed silent and still for a long moment, until Garren finally said:

"As you wish, m’lord."

The lanky knight glanced at Garren, then back at Darion.

"Best of luck."

Though it didn’t sound like best of luck. It sounded considerably more like goodbye.

Darion didn’t reply. He turned and walked out, Garren falling in behind him.

The moment he was clear of the entrance he could feel the low roar of conversation breaking out across the training grounds at his back. He didn’t need to hear the words to know what was being said. A new Baron, arrived less than a day ago, heading alone into the woods that had swallowed twenty-seven of their own and spat out two a month or so ago.

He knew how it sounded. Brave and stupid in equal measure. And under normal circumstances, it would have been exactly that.

But he had his undead. Five of them, sitting in his inventory, waiting. That was the only reason he had decided to do this at all, and even with them, it was still a risk. Just a narrower one than it would have been otherwise. With the right approach and the right positioning, he could make this work.

He just had to think it through properly before he got there.

As they walked back toward the castle, Garren spoke.

"I still think this is a bad idea, m’lord. Honestly, I don’t think you’ll survive."

Darion said nothing. He only increased his pace, which forced Garren to do the same as they made their way to the stable.

He had decided he would go now. It was almost late evening, and if he wasted any more time it would be dark before he reached the forest. Darkness wouldn’t matter to the Bogoarts, blind creatures didn’t care about light. But it would matter to him. He relied entirely on his eyes, and stumbling through an unfamiliar forest at night looking for something that could smell him coming was not the version of this plan that ended well.

At the stable, Darion leaned against the wall and looked at Garren.

"Get me a sword. A good one. And a spear."

Garren bowed and headed back toward the castle.

While he waited, Darion stretched: arms, legs, shoulders. He had slept in the armor and his body was quietly reminding him of that fact.

He worked out the stiffness as best he could, then looked at the horse and exhaled slowly.

Now that he was standing here, with the forest actually ahead of him and not just a distant idea, he was beginning to feel the weight of what he had announced back there.

Even with his undead, how certain was he really? He had spoken with confidence about the Bogoarts being unable to detect his skeletons because they carried no blood. And he still believed that. But he had stopped his thinking there and hadn’t pushed it further.

No blood meant they couldn’t be smelled. But did that make them invisible in every sense? The Bogoarts were blind, yes, but blind creatures still felt vibration. They still heard sound. His undead were bone moving across forest ground. They had weight and they made noise. Footsteps on leaves and soil weren’t silent just because there was no heartbeat behind them.

He filed that concern away. Something to be careful about, not something to stop him.

Garren returned shortly with the sword and spear. Darion mounted his horse, and Garren handed both weapons up to him.

"I need you to lead me to the path," Darion said, settling the spear across his lap. "Just to the point where the forest starts, where I’d first expect to find them. You’re not coming in. Just get me there and come back."

"Understood, m’lord," Garren said.

They set off.

As they passed the training grounds, a handful of knights stood at the gate watching. They said nothing. They only looked, the hollow-eyed, grim stare of men watching something they expected not to see return. Darion met their eyes as he rode past, his face giving them nothing but steadiness. Garren kept his gaze forward.

Out in the streets, the townsfolk stopped to watch too. Perhaps word had moved fast?, the way it always did in small places with little else to talk about? That ought to be unlikely.

A small cluster of people stood outside a doorway, watching the Baron ride past with his knight commander on foot beside him. He heard murmuring: the new Baron, going into the woods alone, on his first day, and he let it pass over him without response.

He rode. Garren walked alongside at a steady pace, leading him through the edge of the barony and toward the tree line.

The further they got from the castle, the quieter everything became. The streets thinned out. The buildings gave way to open ground, patchy and dry. And ahead, the forest rose up, dark and dense, the trees packed close together, the light already failing beneath the canopy even before evening had fully arrived. It looked exactly like the kind of place that kept what went into it.

Garren slowed as the path narrowed toward the tree line and stopped.

"This is it, m’lord."

He said it simply.

Darion looked at the forest for a moment, then back at Garren.

"Any advice?"

Garren was quiet for a second. Then he said:

"Always know what’s ahead of you. Or behind you."

Vague. Not exactly useful in a practical sense. But there was something in it: a warning to stay aware, to never assume the threat was where you expected it to be.

Darion nodded slowly.

"Thanks."

He turned the horse toward the tree line.

Behind him, Garren’s voice came one last time, quiet and genuine.

"Hope you come back alive, m’lord." 𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺

Darion glanced back over his shoulder.

"I will."

Then he rode in.